


O Come Let Us Adore Him

by Bandity



Series: O Come Let Us Adore Him [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Brainwashing, Brief discussion of non-consensual clothes changing, Choking, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Forced Feeding, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, It's me so someone is going to puke, Langst, Major Character Injury, Minor Injuries, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Touching, PTSD, Seizures, Self-Harm, Vomit, War violence, Withdrawal, eating issues, mention of weight loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-05-28 08:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandity/pseuds/Bandity
Summary: Lance finds himself stranded on a planet that has a hidden danger. It's a good thing he has such welcoming hosts to keep him safe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make sure I got all the warnings in the tags, but I may add any if I realize there are more.  
> I have done something I've never done while writing for the Voltron fandom, I'm posting the first chapter before the fic is finished. So my best guess is there is going to be 4 chapters total and it will run around 20K. 
> 
> This is inspired by the amazing Cosu's art. [Possibly spoilerish art is here.](https://hardlynotnever.tumblr.com/post/168919482795/o-come-let-us-adore-him). You can look at it now, or take a look after the chapter. I will link to it in the end notes, so you may click on it after you have finished. 
> 
> Okay, please excuse mistakes. It's 4:30am again. I'm going to post it and then comb through it once more for mistakes, before I go to bed. Thank you very much!

Lance had never failed a mission this badly. There had been mistakes and occasional screw ups, but he had never experienced absolutely everything going to hell in a matter of minutes. 

It was a rare solo mission too. He was never going to be trusted again. Though, now, his pride was the least of his problems. Blue was hurt. Spiraling through space. Ambushed when he should have seen it coming. The distress signal they had picked up had been from a small vessel and as Lance saw it blown to pieces he really hoped that it had been fake, just part of the trap. He hoped he hadn't just seen dozens of refugees slaughtered.

He wasn’t able to send his own distress signal, his own systems knocked out before he could get a message out. He had tried to fight. Really he had. And when the fight went bad, he tried to run. 

_Too late. Too late._

He had just managed to break away from the Galra ships following him, when Blue went completely dark. Damaged with nothing online, he fell more than piloted into the closest planet's gravity field.

It wasn't going to be enough. The Galra would figure out where he went eventually. This wasn't going to work. 

The rocky ground rose up to meet him. Lance braced for impact.

* * *

 

Lance awoke with a gasp.

He groaned and winced at the pain in his back. His head was swimming and it pounded fiercely. With a great amount of effort, he pushed himself off the pilot seat and stumbled towards the exit. 

Everything was dark and Lance realized Blue had become wedged in some sort of cave. The ramp couldn't extend out. He had to squeeze himself out between rocks and his lion's face. The closeness was starting to make him panic and he frantically pushed against the stone wall. To his surprise, the wall partially crumbled. Dust filled the air and Lance was grateful he had a supply of oxygen through his helmet. Curious, Lance batted at the loose rocks and watched them crumble to dust. They were so brittle.

Lance continued his struggle out, past his lion and into the light. Upon making it out of the tight space, he made the decision to put his face shield up. Though it wasn’t so much of a decision, but more of a desperate attempt to alleviate the trapped feeling he had clenching his chest. It seemed as though Blue had fallen into a canyon and had embedded herself into the wall. He had thought it was a cave, but clearly Blue had made the indention herself with the impact. Her back legs were sticking out, it would have been funny in a different situation. Now Lance scanned the sky for fighters, worrying about how much time he had. He was sure he had damaged the Galra ships, but he had no idea how many were left or what kind of shape they were in. With his luck, they were probably going to find him soon and Blue was basically a sitting duck. 

Though there was a fair amount of dust in the air and it was settling across her… With enough of it, she might just look like the boulders surrounding them.

Rocks crumbled under Lance's boots as he walked back and forth, picking up stones and walking them to his lion. 

They weren't heavy. They were actually absurdly light for their size.

"Sorry, about this," Lance muttered as he wiped dirt across Blue's paw, hiding the glint of the metal. "You'll get a nice bath when this is all over."

Lance worked until he was sure Blue was disguised from passing patrols. He leaned heavily against the canyon wall and breathed through a wave of nausea. He just felt… off. The landing had been rough and there was his failed mission to think over. Swallowing hard, he began to shuffle back towards the cave. He would have to wait until rescue came or Blue woke up. 

The sound of rocks cascading down the canyon wall and exploding into dust made him jump. He immediately had his bayard out and swung around, ready to aim.

But there weren’t any Galra soldiers behind him. 

There were about ten alien beings all standing quietly and staring at him from a fair distance away. One had climbed down the rocky wall, closer to him. 

She held her arms aloft and Lance saw three fingers on each hand. He assumed it was a she, though maybe not. The alien was wearing a loose robe that flowed past her feet. Besides her hands, Lance could only see her face. Greyish, nearly blue skin with a small pair of eyes and a slit of a mouth. He didn't see any kind of nose, but in the middle of her face there was a splash of freckles that seemed to catch the light and shimmer.

"Do not be frightened."

Lance was startled. He had been almost pointing his gun at her and yet, she didn't seem concerned at all.

"We saw you fall from the sky. Are you injured?" Her voice reminded him of wind chimes. It had a musical tone that rose and fell with her words.

"No, I'm sorry." Lance gave his head a shake in an attempt to clear it. "Hello. Could you tell me the name of this planet?"

"Enseldia." She blinked slowly. "You are on Enseldia."

"Okay. My name's Lance." Lance moved forward with a grin on his face. "What's your name?"

"Sayna." She tilted her head at him, but didn't move to meet him. "Are you injured, Lance? You appear injured."

"Just had a rough landing. I'm okay."

"Our healers could treat your injuries." When she turned away, the others all turned as well and began walking, finding small paths amongst the rocks that led out of the canyon.

"Not sure if..." Lance swallowed, feeling vaguely nauseous again. He had just lost a fight and he figured the Galra would be back with reinforcements. "The Galra are looking for me. Well, they will be, I'm sure. It's not really safe."

"It will not take long. Please come."

"My lion, I shouldn't leave her here for too long."

Sayna turned and her eyes crinkled around the edges. Light glinted more brightly off her freckles. It was a beautiful smile. 

"But you have done well hiding her. She will not be discovered soon."

"Oh, thanks." Lance rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess it would be okay for a little while."

Sayna tilted her head and began to lead the way again. Lance soon fell into step beside her. They were silent, until Lance's boot crushed a rock and caused him to stumble. He hurried to right himself and looked up to see Sayna staring at him curiously. 

"Are you a warrior?"

"A Paladin." Lance cleared his throat and prayed the blush wasn't showing on his cheeks. "A Paladin of Voltron. Do you know it?"

"Yes, we have heard of Voltron."

"Right."

They walked on a few more paces until Lance cleared his throat again.

"The rocks here. They're very interesting."

"Yes. We have all kinds of rocks here. The Volcano of Old changed much of the composition of this area. The ground will be much sturdier closer to our city."

"That's... That's good." Lance didn't know why he was faltering so badly at conversation. He was usually good at this part. Maybe he had hit his head harder than he thought. 

In the distance there rose a white tower, it was surrounded by smaller white structures that glinted in the sunlight. 

"That is Krestis." She smiled at him again. "Paladin Lance, you will be safe here."

Lance found himself smiling at her in return. 

"Thank you."

 

* * *

 

Krestis was small and all the buildings were made of the same white stone. Sayna and her people were great miners. As she led Lance to their small infirmary, she told him about their history. The Galra had come once to Enseldia years ago and had taken the majority of its people away to be slaves and workers. The Galra had not returned in many years. 

Lance felt a bubbling apprehension. He shouldn't be here. It wasn't really safe for any of them. 

But Sayna was so calm. 

He felt his anxiety drain away as she spoke, explaining that the tower in the middle of the city was their temple and that they held service there every night.

She continued speaking as he was sat on a cot and had a healer look him over. Lost in her words, he didn't even mind when they removed his helmet and shined a light in his eyes. 

"He will be fine," the healer said. "But he should rest."

"We will have a bed made for you," Sayna nodded to another Enseldian. Lance hadn’t realized that a small group of the aliens were following him around. They whispered quietly to each other and all of them were smiling brightly at him.

"Do not mind them," Sayna offered her hand to Lance, prompting him to step down from the cot. "They are merely excited. We don't have many visitors."

"That's okay. I don't mind really."

Sayna held onto his hand as she led him to another building. It reminded Lance of a dorm, with bedrooms lining the hallways. 

They were walking for some time when Lance had a jolting realization. 

"My team, I need to contact them." He stopped walking and turned to look at the small group that had been following them. "Do you have any communication devices? Something I can send a message out with?"

"Yes, of course. We shall send an encrypted message out on your behalf." Sayna pulled at his fingers gently. "We will let them know you are here and that you are safe."

"Thank you."

Sayna took Lance to the end of one of the hallways and into a large beautiful room. There wasn't much furniture, but there were flowing fabrics hung on the walls and a large bed with many soft blankets. It looked like a dream come true.

"You look tired. There are more comfortable clothes in the drawers. Please rest as long as you need. We shall bring you food when you wake."

"Oh, thanks."

"Rest well, Paladin Lance."

* * *

 

Lance didn't know how long he slept. He just knew that it was the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time. His bed at the castleship was fine, but it was different. Different in that it was so far from Earth. On the castleship, he had his eyemask and the headphones and his routine that allowed him to prepare for sleep. On difficult nights he had Hunk and soothing teas from Coran to help him when he was having trouble. He always had a little trouble.

But here?

Here, he had changed into a pair of soft pants and a loose shirt and he had collapsed into the bed. Before he could even wonder if he would really be able to sleep, he was gone. 

Lance sighed and sat up slowly. There was a small table in the room and a chair that Lance hadn't noticed before. 

On the table there was a tray of food. It looked like mostly assorted fruits and a bowl of something like oatmeal. 

Now that he was upright, he noticed the way his head pounded behind his eyes. They had said he was fine, but he wondered if they knew about human anatomy. They wouldn't, would they?

Something seemed to buzz at the back of Lance's skull. A feeling of dread. It felt like he was missing something. Something important. 

Lance was soon pushing alien oatmeal around in his bowl, contemplating what he was forgetting. 

A knock on the door disrupted his thoughts.

"Come in," he called.

Sayna glided in, looking like starlight. She was smiling again. 

"Paladin Lance, if you are feeling better, I would like to take you on a tour of the gardens."

"Oh, sure."

"I think you'll enjoy them. Also, some of the others would like to meet you. Meeting a Paladin would be a treat, especially for the children."

"That's fine. Sounds good." Lance smiled broadly as he quickly finished his meal.

Everything was fine, he was safe here.

* * *

 

The gardens were beautiful. Multicolored flowers rose up on clear stems that sparkled in the light. The air was sweet and Lance felt like his chest was filling up with warmth. 

It felt like he had been gasping for oxygen for months and this was the first time he was able to actually breathe. He gulped in air greedily and he wondered why he felt so desperate for it.

A distress call. A rescue mission. Failure and death. 

"Paladin Lance?"

Lance blinked. He slowly turned towards that smile he had already become accustomed to. 

"Would you like to sit down? You are still recovering after all."

Right, he'd been injured. With a nod he sat down on one of the many elaborately chiseled stone benches. The Enseldians were masters at carving and everything from the ceiling to the stone path beneath his feet were carved with intricate designs. 

Lance wasn't sitting long when a group of shy children emerged from the foliage and approached him. They stopped short, glancing between Lance and Sayna who sat beside him.

"They wish to give you gifts," Sayna explained. 

"Oh, alright. It's alright." Lance motioned to the smallest child that had broken away from the group. 

With a squeak, the little girl rushed forward and thrust a handful of picked flowers into Lance's hands. 

"That's very nice. Thank you."

A moment later, he had several children climbing into his lap and a few attempting to scale up to his shoulders. They each shoved some gift into his hands. Rocks and flowers and some string that Lance guessed was a necklace. 

Some were chorusing their names at him and he was quietly repeating them, trying to remember as they all tried to get his attention at once.

“Aleese!”

“Baeline!”

“Torlin!”

"Paladin Lance! Paladin Lance!"

"Did you fall from the sky?"

"Why is your nose poked out?"

"Pick me up!"

"Me too! Me too!"

"Enough now," Sayna chided, once Lance realized his child entertainment skills were a bit out matched and he couldn't answer all the questions at once. The children all scrambled off of him and hurried away into the bushes. 

"I apologize. They are excited."

"It's okay." Lance shifted and placed his gifts onto the bench beside him. "They seem like good kids."

"Besides Galra, nobody has ever come to Enseldia. We have prayed for a long time. And now, Triesa has sent you to us."

Lance felt like his brain shorted out. He couldn't have heard that right.

"Oh wait, I mean, I- thank you-I guess, but I crashed here. And I don't know anything about Triesa."

Sayna smiled. "We've been waiting for you for a long, long time."

* * *

 

It was carved into their walls.

The prophecy was that a warrior would come from the sky to protect them against their foes. 

Triesa would send them a savior.

Lance stared for a long time at the etching of the warrior. If he looked long enough, it even resembled him. 

"We've been waiting." Sayna repeated and Lance felt something like nausea building in his throat.

"I'm not- I'm really not what you think I am. I will help you and Voltron can help you when my friends get here. But I don't think I was..."

"Come have dinner with us. We are holding a feast in your honor."

Lance was stumbling over his words and his feet as she dragged him away down the hall. He wasn't what they thought he was. He would help them and protect them the best he could if the Galra came, but he was just Lance. He wasn't one to question a society's beliefs and practices, but this couldn't be right. Lance wasn't a savior. The word was too big for him. 

"Sayna, really I'm not-"

"After dinner, come to temple with us. Then you will see."

Lance sighed deeply. He felt like his head was scrambled and he wondered again if he was more injured than he had realized. He couldn't keep his thoughts organized and he couldn't articulate what he wanted to say. He bit his lip in frustration. 

But Sayna caressed her thumb along his wrist and she hummed in a tone that Lance could only describe as beautiful. 

"Do not worry. You will feel better after dinner, Paladin Lance."

Lance exhaled and nodded. He forced his lips to turn up into a smile. 

This was okay.

* * *

 

Lance didn't realize how hungry he was until he sat down at the head of the long stone table. It was laden with all kinds of foods. Mostly vegetables from the gardens, but there was meat as well, anything he wanted was there.

They served him and they made speeches in his honor and so many people were introducing themselves that he couldn't remember all the faces and names.

"Sayna?" Lance whispered after the meal had been going on for some time.

"Yes, Paladin Lance?"

"I don't want to be rude and it's not that I mind, but do you not have many men on your planet?" Lance had only seen a few elderly Enseldians that he would describe as male and a few children who he was pretty sure we're boys. 

"You're not being rude, Paladin Lance. You are astute to notice." Sayna refilled his glass with more of their sweet smelling drink. "Our fighters were mostly male. We lost them in a battle and those we did not lose, were taken by the Galra."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize-"

Sayna grabbed his hand in both of hers and patted it gently. "Do not be sorry. You are here with us now and we are all so happy you have arrived."

Lance returned her smile, but he didn't think it looked sincere. He couldn't fight off the feeling of wrongness that played at the edge of his mind. He felt so tired suddenly. He wished he could have a moment to think things over. He wished his team would find him soon.

Dinner was soon over and Lance found he was being dragged outside, towards the great spire that rose in the middle of the city. 

"Should I change?" Lance only then realized he'd been wearing the same clothes he had slept in earlier. Surely some sort of church service would require him to change out of his pajamas. 

"You are perfect the way you are, Paladin Lance."

They entered the temple and Lance discovered inside that it was really only one giant room. The actual spire was hollow and he could look straight up into it. There were more and more carvings that covered the walls. Pillows were set in rows on the floor and at the very front of the building stood a large statue. 

There wasn't much detail in the dark face but the statue had elaborate flowing robes chiseled from the stone. The figure stood with both arms out, as though it was welcoming those who were present. 

Lance took a seat at the front of the room, he found that his eyes lingered on the statue. 

He had attended church while he was growing up and, while it had been a part of his life, he honestly hadn't given too much thought to religion in his teens. Still, he wasn't actually sure how he felt about visiting this temple service for a goddess he only learned about today. He supposed he would just be as respectful as possible. Hopefully, Sayna would let him know if he was supposed to do anything during the ceremony. 

He knelt on a cushion in the front row with Sayna at his side. The service began quickly after that. There was a speaker at the front, an older Enseldian with long elaborate robes. She spoke about Triesa and how their goddess had smiled upon them. How much she loved them. How she had sent them a savior. Lance couldn't help the frown that formed on his face. This wasn't who he was. He could barely save himself. His last mission had proven that. 

Sayna placed her hand over his and Lance felt a rush of calm at the contact. It was alright. He was safe. Through the rest of the ceremony he followed Sayna's lead with the way she moved her hands and if she repeated some part of a prayer, he would too. 

At the end, they were all invited to take upon Triesa's love and Lance realized it was something like Communion. He had at least done that before.

“May Triesa shine her love upon you.”

They handed him a small, pure white clump that looked more like a rock he might find outside. He turned his head and watched as Sayna put the emblem in her mouth. She smiled and nodded at Lance. 

Lance quickly popped the rock into his mouth, anxious about seeming rude.

He felt a tingling sensation on his tongue and it quickly erupted into a burning that filled his mouth. The rock seemed to lodge itself onto his palate before disintegrating into agony and sliding down his throat. 

He choked and felt his eyes water. Precise fingers landed on his face then and caressed his cheeks. 

"We love you Paladin Lance. We have always loved you."

Lance felt a rush of warmth and he could feel the swell of tears that dripped down his face. The tingling sensation vanished into numbness. From his toes to his fingertips he felt a sudden electric energy and then he was filled with relaxing calm and peace. Every muscle relaxed. Every pain was gone.

As everything dimmed into darkness, Lance only had one resounding thought.

_They love me._

* * *

 

Lance wasn't sure how long he had slept. He just knew that it had been the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time. 

His head pounded dully and he rubbed hard at his eyes. He sat up with a yawn and examined his small room. His throat itched and he wondered if he was getting sick on top of his head injury. 

He spotted the tray of food on the table. It looked like assorted fruits and some kind of oatmeal. He didn't feel very hungry, which was surprising since he hadn't eaten since he had been on the castleship ...

Wait.

No.

He'd eaten dinner with Sayna and the Enseldians last night.  His crash had been yesterday. Not this morning.

"Weird," Lance mumbled under his breath. Maybe he'd hit his head harder than he thought. 

He wandered to the table, still not quite awake.

There was something. Something about going to temple? Had he fallen asleep during the service? That was embarrassing. There was a knock and Lance called for them to enter.

"Paladin Lance, how are you feeling?" Sayna was still smiling at him.

"I'm alright. Did I fall asleep during your temple service last night?"

"It's important for you to rest. You are still injured."

Lance nodded and swirled his oatmeal around. His stomach turned and he had the strangest wave of unease go through him. 

"Sayna," Lance spoke slowly. "Did you send out my message to my team? Have you gotten any response?"

"We have been sending it. No response yet. Do not worry. You've only just arrived."

They hadn't found him yet. He hadn't been too far out. They should have known his last location in space. 

_Maybe they're not looking._

Lance set his spoon down. 

"Paladin Lance, would you like to tour our gardens?"

"Again?" Lance muttered, he was distracted, his thoughts pulling him away from their conversation, away from Enseldia. 

"Paladin Lance." Sayna spoke loudly, startling him. "After you eat, I will take you on a tour of the gardens."

"I toured them yesterday."

"But you've only just arrived. You must have been dreaming."

"Dreaming?" Lance frowned. He could remember it though. There were flowers and the kids and... Everything swirled around. He had an idea of events, but he couldn't pinpoint details, not the color of the flowers or the names of the children.

Maybe it had been a dream.

"You are still recovering. Please eat. We want you to get well."

Lance nodded and picked up his spoon again. Sayna smiled and reached over to set a hand on his shoulder. 

"Everything will be alright. You are safe here."

* * *

 

They toured the garden, children gave him gifts, Sayna told him that he was important to them. So very, very important.

They were at dinner and Lance did his best to be polite, but something was wrong. It didn't feel right. He couldn't think. His thoughts kept scattering the moment he tried to dwell on what was happening. Sayna was holding his hand throughout dinner and she would squeeze his fingers every so often. 

"We are so happy you are here," she would quietly tell him and Lance would nod.

Dinner was over and Lance was pulled to the temple. He was kneeling on the floor with them when an instinctual panic kicked in. His brain was screaming _danger_ and that it was wrong, wrong ,wrong. He choked on his fear and tried to stand, but Sayna held firmly to his hand and she whispered softly to him.

"We love you so much. You are safe here. You are loved." 

Lance shook his head. He'd been moving through this day like a dream and how were they always so sure he was safe? There was still Galra out there and he needed to get to Blue. Blue! He'd forgotten about Blue. 

"May Triesa shine her love upon you."

Something was forced between his teeth and Lance tried to push it away, but it was already dissolving. A hand clamped down over his mouth to keep it in place anyway. It stung and then it burned. Lance struggled. 

"You are safe. You are alright. Triesa loves you. We love you." Whispers in his ears, in his mind. 

Lance screwed his eyes shut. _Wait, wait, wait. Stop, stop. Please._

Warmth flooded his veins and it all went dark. 

* * *

 

Lance wasn't sure how long he had slept. He just knew that it had been the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time. 

A tray of food sat on his table. There was a knock at his door and Sayna entered, looking lovely and smiling. 

"After you eat, if you are feeling better, we will go on a tour of the gardens."

"Okay, sure."

Sayna beamed at him and he returned the smile.

* * *

 

 

Lance wasn't sure how long he had slept. He just knew that it had been the best sleep he'd had in a long, long time...

 

* * *

 

"Paladin Lance, wake. You must wake."

Lance knew someone was calling him, but he had been sleeping so deeply. He couldn't fight off the sleep that pulled him under. 

"Paladin Lance. Please. The Galra are coming."

That woke him up.

Lance sat up with great effort. 

"... Galra?" He forced out. He'd known it would be a possibility for them to follow him here, but he'd thought he'd have more time. It had only been... wait. 

It had been...

Lance felt a pain echo in his skull. He had eaten with them and there was a garden and gifts and the temple. He had been to the temple. 

Right?

But-

"Paladin Lance, will you come with me?"

"Yeah, of course." Lance coughed trying to clear his throat, it felt like someone had jammed sandpaper down there, but there wasn't time to think about that.

Sayna handed his bayard, under armor and armor to him. 

"The Galra have been scouting since early this morning. They are surrounding the city. We believe they will soon begin to move in."

Lance nodded. "Were you able to get a message out to my team?"

"It was only sent out this morning after you arrived. Nobody has responded yet."

"This morning..." Lance felt his head swim at the thought. Wasn't it yesterday or...

"When you are ready, I will be waiting in the hall." Sayna turned and left quickly.

Lance discarded the robes he had borrowed to sleep in and dressed as hastily as his shaking fingers would allow. He had some cuts on his hand and he absently thought they must be from when he crashed Blue. His hands were shaking too hard to inspect very closely.

That was weird. Maybe he needed to eat something? Lance turned towards the table in his room, but stopped short. He thought there was food there. Not that he had actually seen it, but he had just assumed...

Lance shook his head. Lunch wasn't really the issue now. 

He checked his bayard and ran a hand over his chest plating. He had a job to do. He had to keep everyone safe. 

It's what you do for the people who love you.

 

* * *

 

The Enseldians set explosives around the city. The rough plan being that they would draw the Galra in and set them off. Lance would have to try and stop anyone that continued the attack on the city. 

The Enseldians had a wide underground tunnel network that they would use to get to safety. The only entrance to these tunnels was inside the temple. Lance just had to buy them time so they could all get away.

"When it is safe, go to the temple and go through the hatch behind the statue. Follow us."

Lance nodded. He could do this.

"Go with the love of Triesa and all of us." Sayna clasped both of her hands over his for a brief moment before she was gone. 

With a clear mission in mind, Lance moved through emptying streets. He made his way up to the roof of a nearby home. He had a clear view of the entrance to the temple this way. 

Lance took a deep breath and waited. 

* * *

 

The explosions that went off were much bigger than Lance thought they would be. He almost lost his bayard as he instinctively raised his hands to cover his ears.

The roof he was standing on shuddered and Lance stared, watching the dust fly into the air and then begin to settle again. He blinked hard, straining to refocus on the task at hand. 

He watched the last few Enseldians run through the temple doors. That was everybody. They had been the ones in charge of setting off the explosives. Lance just had to keep any Galra away now. He shifted, looked cautiously down the darker alleys between the buildings and continued to wait.

* * *

 

The first drones that made their way into the square were taken care of quickly and easily. Lance moved from one roof to the other, trying not to reveal his location as he took out anything that got too close. 

After nearly an hour, the Galra had gotten wise to his movements and they had begun climbing roofs to try and get a shot at him. 

Lance was sweating profusely as he moved around to the other side of a chimney. He knelt down on one knee and aimed for the three soldiers that were making their way to the temple. 

One.

Two.

Three shots.

They were done. Lance flexed his hand, feeling an odd numbness there. He readjusted his grip and aimed away towards the shadows below.  He took a breath. Aimed.

The roof exploded around him. 

Lance fell through to the second floor before he realized what had happened. Someone had decided to throw a grenade into the building he was stationed on.

Lance coughed, registered the ringing in his ears and the taste of blood on his tongue. He scrambled to his feet, but the world swayed heavily one way and then the other. Lance wiped blood from his eyes. 

_Where's my helmet?_

Despite the pain and panic that coursed through him, Lance was very suddenly confused. Had he forgotten it somewhere? Had he left the helmet on Blue? When had he seen it last? How he could he go into a fight without it?

Lance spit blood from his mouth and stumbled towards the stairs. He needed to move.

He rushed from the building as another explosion went off and he dove down to the cobblestone road. Bits of rock pinged off his armor and pelted the back of his exposed neck. 

He pushed himself up on his feet again and swung his bayard one way and then the other. 

Movement caught his eye and he fired. His shots were going wide, but he tried again and again until the movement stopped. 

Lance was moving through alleys. Not stopping to catch his breath or make a plan. He had to move, he had to protect them. 

More than once his armor was grazed by a shot and he felt the pressure and the warmth as his armor was damaged and burnt. 

_Move, move, move._

_Keep shooting. Shoot until all the shadows stop moving. Shoot until it's safe. Shoot until you can't do it anymore._

* * *

 

The streets and alleyways had gone quiet a long time ago, but Lance still dragged his feet over the uneven stones.

He knew something was wrong with his arm. It had gone cold and his finger kept slipping from the trigger of his bayard. His legs were cooperating, but they shook, threatening to give out at any moment. 

He needed to get back to the temple. He would be safe there. Safe and warm and with those who loved him. Tears sprang to the corners of his eyes. Being alone hurt. He couldn't stand it. He would die if he couldn't get back to the temple. He knew it. 

Lance struggled to push himself from the wall he was leaning against, but it was so, so hard. 

He took a deep breath, watched the way the red spots appeared on the stones beneath him. His feet had red smudges too that followed him around. Like a secondary shadow of blurred rust. 

The wall was turning that color too. 

Lance moved forward. Driven by the pain in his chest and the overwhelming need to be with them again. 

Sayna was waiting. 

Lance didn't know how long he walked, but he suddenly found himself there, standing in front of Triesa and her open arms. 

He exhaled a loud, shaking breath and felt the tears slip down his cheeks. 

Lance needed to be here. Nothing had ever been more important or true. This was where he was needed and this was where he was loved. 

A few more steps and then he was starting to fall, but it was alright. Triesa was welcoming and she could protect him. Like a child he climbed into her lap and let out another deep exhale. He had made it. He could rest now. 

His bayard slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. The world went quiet, the only sound, the soft patter as blood dripped to the floor, marring the beautiful white stone.

_You are safe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the art [again!](https://hardlynotnever.tumblr.com/post/168919482795/o-come-let-us-adore-him)
> 
> So, the wonderful Cosu made me more art! [Lance being force fed.](https://hardlynotnever.tumblr.com/post/175327116915/ahhhh-so-banditywrites-new-fic-is-fantastic) Could be considered NSFW because it is a bit terrifying, but I do love it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. Next part will be up in a few days. Please do comment. I love comments.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added tags, so if you have any triggers or anything, please look them over again. Also, just to be clear, I'm not going to kill Lance. 
> 
> OK. Here we go. Please excuse mistakes, I will be reading it again before I finally sleep and may catch them then.

Lance had been missing for 10 days. 

On the first day, they tried not to worry too much. Lance could have just been busy with his mission and gotten too far out to keep in contact. 

"He'll be okay," Shiro had told Hunk when Lance failed to show up in the morning. They were moving through the sector that he should have been in and they were still hopeful. They really hadn't worried until Pidge intercepted a Galra transmission from a nearby ship.

_The Blue Lion has fallen in battle. It belongs to the glory of the Galra Empire._

Without delay, they tracked down the ship that was the source of the transmission and found themselves faced with a fleet of enemy fighters.

They fought hard and they searched for Blue. But she wasn't there.

Lance wasn't there.

Another transmission, another hint at a location. They moved through the universe. Searching. Searching. Coming up with nothing. It was on their fourth raid of a base that Pidge uncovered an encrypted transmission meant for only the highest ranking Galra.

_Find the Blue Lion before Voltron does. Recover the Lion. Kill the pilot._

There were instructions to keep sending out fake transmissions, keep the remaining Paladins on a useless hunt. Keep them busy. Distract them. Don't reveal to them the lion is not already in the Galra empire. 

Pidge made sure to blow up that base. 

Worry didn't describe what they felt anymore. They became even more frantic to find Lance and his lion before the Galra did. 

10 days. 

He could be hurt or sick.

He could be dead.

They were fighting a small Galra fleet when they finally got their breakthrough. Blue's energy signature lit up the scans and the fight seemed to pause as everyone realized what that meant. 

Lance was on Enseldia. 

The planet was in the distance, close enough to see, too far to get to without having to fight a whole lot of ships.

"Pidge, Hunk, go find Blue. We'll take care of things here!" Shiro shouted. "We’ll follow you as soon as we can."

The Green and Yellow lions sped off to the planet and Shiro heard Coran begin to say something and then stop himself. 

"Keep your face shield down, it's not a friendly atmosphere. Be careful," Coran finally settled on.

Shiro and Keith were making short work of the fighters. They had gotten used to ending fights quickly the past 10 days. Unable to form Voltron, everything depended on ending fights fast.

"D'you think he's okay?" Keith asked quietly. They had all been worrying and Keith had noticed the way Shiro was avoiding the topic of Lance being hurt or worse.

"I… I don't know." Shiro cleared his throat. "We'll have to worry about it later. You've got one on your tail."

Keith spun in the air, swiftly dispatching his attacker. 

One thing at a time. 

* * *

 

Blue was curled up around some large spire in the middle of what was left of a small city.

There were obvious signs of a battle. Hunk and Pidge landed just outside the mess of buildings and debris. They had been worried that landing in the city could cause more damage and injure any possible survivors.

They didn't need to worry so much.

"They're all dead, Hunk."

They had first started checking for vital signs from the alien bodies, but there weren't any. The further they went in, the more bodies they found.

"Do you think the Galra already went through here?" Hunk was whispering, the quiet around them settling into their minds.

"Blue wouldn’t still be here if the Galra had caused all this and there would be Galra soldiers too. Or at least some sign of their tech. Most of them look..."

Pidge didn't want to say it. Maybe Hunk hadn't noticed yet.

Most of these aliens were shot in the head. Or in the lower neck. If they had been Galra robot sentries, the shot would have been perfectly through the energy source.

They had all fought together long enough to recognize Lance's work. 

Hunk and Pidge looked at each other for a long moment. 

"Do you think-"

"We should keep going." Pidge turned away. She stepped over a body and made her way down the street, towards the center.

Pidge was scanning bodies as she passed by, but her eyes remained on the cobblestone road. She couldn't look at them any longer. 

As the road became less crowded, a bit of red caught her eye. 

A splatter of blood and then a drip followed by another and another. The trail led away down the street. 

"Hunk." The alien blood didn't look very different from a human’s, but, somehow, she just knew. 

Hunk didn't say anything; instead he began to follow the trail too. There wasn't any need to go too far, it lead straight to the spire where Blue was laying so still. 

Pidge had already known something was wrong. If Lance was alright, he would have flown away in Blue or at least contacted them. However, attempts to get him on the coms were met with silence. 

Pidge realized that feeling something is wrong and then having it confirmed without a doubt, doesn’t make the confirmation any easier.

As soon as they entered the great spire and their eyes adjusted, Pidge knew Lance was gone. 

There was too much blood and too much stillness in the room. 

The statue had made Hunk jump. He'd thought it was alive. It was ironic, considering how dead Lance looked draped in its cold arms. Pidge froze up and she wouldn't have moved a single step more into that room if Hunk hadn't grabbed her shoulder. Because even though it looked impossible, he still hoped Lance was alive. 

"Pidge, run the scan, run it. I can't tell- I can't tell if he's breathing or not. Pidge, come on."

She felt her arm raise up and she tapped in a familiar sequence. She had an intense desire to shut her eyes. _Don't look, maybe it will all go away if you don't look._

Beep… Beep.

Pidge blinked. She stared and exhaled a long, ragged breath.

"Heartbeat," Pidge held the scan up. It was weak, but it was there.

"Can we move him?" Hunk was gently brushing hair from Lance's forehead, trying to get a better look at the gash there. 

"I-" Pidge swallowed as she took in the rest of the scan. "Probably shouldn't, but I don’t think we can wait."

Hunk had nodded and then very carefully picked Lance up in his arms. Lance's head lolled and blood spilled from between his lips. Pidge wanted to throw up. Hunk had gone pale, but he shifted his hold and carried him away from there.

They were walking quickly out of the building when Pidge realized they had parked Green and Yellow too far away, they wouldn't make it in time. Lance needed help now. 

Blue was suddenly there, springing back to life to offer her help. Without question, they piled inside. As soon as they were aboard, Blue took off for the castleship, no extra piloting needed. Hunk had set Lance on the floor and he hunched over him, holding him still as Blue maneuvered through the atmosphere. 

Pidge felt a rush of relief as they quickly moved away. Hunk was reporting to Shiro. Telling him the news. Shiro sounded tired to her ears. Much more tired than he was 10 days ago at the beginning of this whole mess.

She and Hunk would have to go back for Yellow and Green, but saving Lance was the most important thing right now. If they moved fast, then they could make it.

That was when Lance had his first seizure. 

* * *

 

"It was about-uh, 70 ticks," Hunk reported flatly into the comlink. 

"That's about the same as the last one," Coran noted. Lance hadn't really stopped seizing. They came one after the other and every time, Pidge was certain his heart was going to stop. Hunk had even removed Lance's chest plate, preparing to do CPR if he needed to. But Lance's heart kept going. He breathed in small gasps that made blood bubble up between his lips. Hunk had tried to make sure the blood wasn’t blocking his airway, but there was just too much of it.

Blue was pulling into the castle. Coran was already there, prepared to meet them with a stretcher and an assortment of medicines. 

There was a flurry of activity as Lance was loaded up. He began seizing again as Coran was sticking something in his arm. It was similar to an IV port that could be used to administer medicine to Lance. Though Lance was shaking, Coran managed to empty one vial into the port, then another and another...

Lance went still. Froth, tinged pink with blood slipped from his mouth.

For a brief moment, Coran took Lance's bleeding head between his hands and just held on to him. 

Pidge wondered what Altean healing method it was, but then she saw the grief in Coran's eyes. Coran wasn't administering anything or even really inspecting injuries, he was just staring.

"Fight on, my dear boy," Coran whispered almost too low to hear. Then he stood up straight and the pain was gone, replaced with a steady resolve.

"Pods are his best chance," Coran lead the way away from the hangar and further into the castle.

* * *

 

The next few days were something like a nightmare. Though, really, this entire incident seemed like some hellish dream from the start.

As soon as Lance was stable, Shiro privately pulled Coran aside and insisted that Coran bring up a screen with a list of Lance's injuries. Then they moved through each one.

Blunt trauma, contusions, a concussion, a shot in the arm, internal bleeding, a fractured wrist...

Then there were the smaller details.

"What is this bruising on his face?" Shiro had been watching Lance in the pod while Coran spoke and had noticed that, now that his face was clear of blood, the bruising around Lance’s mouth was obvious. It looked as though it was beginning to fade, but Shiro knew what bruising from fingers looked like. 

Coran didn't say anything for a moment. He clicked away at his computer and then pulled up a different list. He sighed deeply before speaking.

"I've created a separate record for injuries that appear to be older. The pod hasn't begun to heal these yet. His own healing process was already started days ago." Coran brought up another screen that showed a projection of Lance’s body. It showed the location of the older injuries. A hand and his face, throat, lungs and entire esophagus lit up. 

Coran studied the areas before glancing at Lance and then quickly away again. "Enseldia is not an easy planet to visit. The inhabitants have adapted, but there is something in the soil, the rocks, really the whole surface called Syliid. It's poison and it’s in everything; the air, the plants, the water. Long exposure can cause hallucinations amongst other things. It's why he was having seizures." Coran nodded towards the pod. "Lance shows signs of ingesting it. Not just a small amount either, but a large amount over the space of many days."

"So the bruising..." Shiro already knew the answer, but he hoped he was wrong.

"It's from being force fed." Coran cleared his throat and resumed typing; needing to keep his hands busy. "The damage to his throat supports the idea. Enseldians have rough hands. His soft palate is damaged."

Shiro rubbed at his eyes.

"So he was their prisoner? Is that why he was fighting them? Did he escape and-"

"From the transmissions I've intercepted, it is my understanding that Enseldia is currently having something of a religious war, one that has been going on for hundreds of years. I think Lance got caught in the middle. And with the amount of Syliid in his system, he probably didn't know what was really happening."

"Okay," Shiro finally said. "Can we talk to anyone on the planet, to find out details about what happened? Will they talk to us?"

 "Allura requested to speak to one of the leaders of the closest city. We should know more soon."

"Okay." Shiro crossed his arms. He needed to make plans. If he could make a plan, then he would have some control over this whole thing. "Do you know when Lance will be healed?"

"Not yet. It's best if he stays as long as possible." 

Well, there wasn't much of a plan for now. If he could just find out what had happened... He hated not knowing.

10 days. 

Shiro swallowed hard. "What's happened to his esophagus? The entire thing is damaged?"

"Syliid is harmful when swallowed. It would have burned."

Shiro hated this.

* * *

 

Nothing really good came from the communication with Enseldia. Allura found out that their main government had sent out a small army to deal with the radical, religious cult that lived in the desert and every soldier they sent had been killed. The government was in a bit of a state over it.

Going through the remains of the city, looking for clues, Pidge was able to locate Lance's helmet, tucked away in one of the many rooms of a large building. Besides that, there was little to no evidence of what had happened for the duration of Lance’s missing days. 

It was frustrating to say the least. 

And still, Lance continued to sleep in the pod.

"The Syliid is still in his system. We have to wait," Coran explained to them all, when they had gathered in front of Lance's pod. Allura looked uncomfortable as she shot Coran a look. 

"How much longer?" Shiro asked. They had moved on from Enseldia and we're doing their best to avoid any major fight with the Galra. Unable to form Voltron, they were outmatched. Shiro tried not to think of them as sitting ducks.

"It is unclear. Soon. I hope it will be soon."

"It's been days!" Pidge finally burst out. "Is there a problem with the pod?"

"Not with the pod, no," Coran spoke carefully. 

"Coran, I think you should tell them. It may not be as bad as you think. Humans are resilient," Allura set her hand upon Coran's elbow. "I think Lance will be alright."

"Wait, what does she mean?" Hunk glanced around the room, looking for answers he might have missed.

"Coran?" Shiro prompted. His eyebrows were creased in worry. The Altean sighed and with a few clicks, he brought up Lance's vitals on the monitor.

"Syliid is the main reason why the Galra do not have an actual presence on Enseldia. They’ve attacked the planet in the past, but most of the Galra who go there, end up poisoned. It alters someone's perceptions and it also can make one highly suggestible. For example, if you took some, I could tell you that you trust the Galra and if I told you enough and dosed you enough, you would trust them." Coran tapped at a number on his screen. "Lance had enough in his system to kill him.” Coran nodded at Pidge before turning back to the screen. “He was- that is what was happening when you found him. The problem is that, once it is out of one's system, it leaves a mark. Alteans would call it a dependency."

"An addiction," Keith murmured flatly. “You’re saying poison, but this is like a drug, right?”

“I suppose.” Coran sighed. “In this instance they are the same thing.” Coran tapped uselessly on his keyboard. “So I hesitate to wake him. Because while he is healed, there are still trace amounts of Syliid in his body and once it’s gone, he is going to be unwell. I would rather his body adjust initially in the pod, because it's going to be a shock to his system.”

"10 days. He got that bad in 10 days?" Hunk finally managed to whisper when everyone else stayed silent.

"10 days," Coran nodded.

"How long before he readjusts to being without it?" Shiro could feel his headache blooming. Coran blinked for a few ticks.

"Best scenario would be a few weeks." Coran worked his jaw. "Worst scenario is that he reacts as some species do and he... doesn't readjust."

Shiro felt like he was going to be sick.

* * *

 

A week went by and Coran finally gave the go ahead to wake Lance. The Galra seemed to have figured out that they couldn’t form Voltron and their attacks were becoming more frequent.

The plan was to wake Lance, assess him and hope he was over the worst of it and would only experience minor symptoms of withdrawal. Then they could maybe get back to defending the universe.

They gathered around close and were all waiting anxioulsy when the pod opened. Lance fell forward immediately into Hunk's waiting arms. There was a beat of silence.

Lance began screaming. 

The plan went to shit immediately. 

Lance was batting away at their hands and shouting names they didn't know. Triesa, Aleese, Sayna... 

"Hey, Lance. It's me. It's Hunk. You're okay. You're okay." Hunk was holding onto him, keeping him from falling on his face, but when it became apparent that Lance was dead weight, Hunk slipped to the floor with him and just held on. "Shhhh, shhhhh, okay. You're okay."

"Coran?" Shiro's voice almost shook. He'd been startled by the outburst and Lance sounded so desperately broken. It was hard to watch.

"He's just confused. The last thing he probably remembers is fighting. See if he can calm down on his own. If not, I can give him a light sedative."

They waited. 

Lance's screams tapered away to hard sobs and then to harsh breaths and then to hiccups.

The entire time, Hunk talked to him and rubbed his back and tried to get him to respond. But even after the crying quieted, Lance only stared into the distance, unaware of what was happening. 

They began talking quietly and, eventually, decided to move Lance to the infirmary. Hunk carried him over, with the others trailing behind, whispering. 

Hunk and Shiro helped get Lance into the pajamas that they had brought from his room, but Lance still didn't acknowledge them. He moved his arms through his shirt when prompted, but he made no sign of recognizing what was going on. 

"Maybe he snapped," Pidge said quietly. 

"Just give him time to adjust," Coran insisted. 

Lance put his head down on his pillow and shut his eyes. He let out a deep breath and remained still as Hunk pressed a hand to his forehead. Hunk then brushed some of Lance's hair away and went back to rubbing his back. 

"Let him sleep for now. It could be what he needs to orientate himself,” Coran suggested.

For not the first time, Pidge wondered if Coran was just making things up. Adults tended to do that when there were kids around and they had no idea what was going to happen.

"It's alright." Coran patted Hunk's shoulder. "He'll be alright."

Pidge glanced over at Keith for the first time since Lance had woken up and found he had a scowl on his face. Their eyes met and in that moment she could see that he understood it too. 

Adults lie.

* * *

 

Lance didn't know how long he slept. He just knew that he was in pain. There was a stabbing feeling in his stomach and his head pounded. Everything felt weighted down as he struggled to come back to consciousness. 

"Where am I?" Lance couldn't get his eyes to open and cooperate, but he felt like someone was close by. Someone familiar. 

"You're on the castle of lions," came the quiet reply. "In the infirmary."

"Hunk," Lance breathed out. He was so relieved. If Hunk was here then it would be okay.

"Did you guys get my transmission?" Lance finally managed to unstick his eyelids and he cracked them open. Hunk was sitting on the edge of his bed, giving him an odd look.

"You sent a transmission?"

"Sayna did."

Hunk didn't know Sayna, but he recognized the name from Lance's screaming earlier. Hunk did know that Pidge had been all over the little city and one of her main complaints was that there was no technology at all. She described it as walking through a town from the dark ages. 

"Okay… well, we didn't get that." Hunk studied Lance cautiously. Lance had closed his eyes again. He didn't seem to be upset, a bit tired, but he wasn't delirious anymore. That was good. Right?

“Hey, Lance?" Hunk shifted and lightly tapped Lance's shoulder. Lance hummed in response. "What's the last thing you remember?"

For a moment, Lance lay completely still, but then he scrunched up his nose and forced out a cough. 

"Blue crashed. I was injured. Sayna told me to rest." But Lance didn't sound so sure. "She told me to rest,” he repeated. 

Without warning, Lance's eyes flew open again and he struggled to sit up. "Something happened. Something... There was a fight. The Galra were there. Did they make it out safely?"

"Whoa, hang on. The Galra?"

"They were there. I remember that. I was the only one who could fight them."

"Uh, okay, hang on. I'm going to tell Shiro you're awake." Hunk had already had a feeling that Lance had been the one that killed every Enseldian that had attacked the city, but this was wrong. What was he supposed to say? Lance thought they were Galra. 

Lance had also been higher than a kite.

Hunk was really not sure how to talk about this. He needed back up. He called for Shiro and Coran over the intercom; they told him they’d be right there.

"Lance, how are you feeling?" Hunk asked as he sat down again at his side. 

"Not so good. Did I get hurt again?"

"Yeah, yeah, you did. You got out of the pod earlier today. You don't remember?"

"I don't think so. How long was I in there this time?"

"More than a week."

"A week?" 

"Closer to two, actually."

Lance fidgeted, moving his hands over the blanket before bringing them up and wringing them near his chest. 

"There's something, there's something..." Lance trailed off, but Hunk could see the tears spring to his eyes.

"Hey, what's wrong? You're alright."

Lance shook his head. "Something's wrong. I feel really weird."

Hunk was saved from having to go into an explanation when Shiro and Coran arrived. 

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Shiro asked. 

"... Weird," Lance admitted. 

"Right. Okay, can you tell me what you remember? Last time we had contact with you there was a distress signal right? You remember that?"

"A distress signal, yeah. Got attacked. I crashed in Blue. Well, I tried to land, but there was no power..." Lance stopped and he looked back at Coran who was typing something into the computer. 

"Lance?" Shiro prompted. 

"I got hurt, but I just needed to rest. Sayna said so. I woke up though... I think they all died."

"Who all died?" Shiro raised his eyebrows in alarm. 

"The ship with the distress signal." 

"Okay, that’s- don’t worry about that right now.”

"I can't remember. It's like a blur. There was a garden and dinner and a fight." Lance was scratching at his right hand, hard enough to leave red streaks on his skin. "They love me."

"Okay..." Shiro spoke quietly. Lance was confusing and obviously not sure what had happened on his end of things. Coran and Shiro had discussed this in some depth. The Syliid was probably going to make things fuzzy. "Lance, let's start over."

Shiro took a deep breath and then reported what had happened, slowly, with long pauses to make sure Lance understood. Lance had been missing for 10 days; they had looked for him in all the wrong places. Shiro even explained the poison in the soil of the planet and how that could be confusing Lance. He mentioned the injuries, told Lance how he had most likely gotten them. Shiro talked right up until the battle and then he faltered.

"There was a... battle and Hunk and Pidge found you." There was still a lot of confusion over what role Lance played. Hunk knew though. He'd seen the result of Lance's sharpshooting dozens of times. Lance was a really good shot.

"You were hurt and sick, from the planet,” Shiro ended his report, feeling like it wasn’t enough.

"The battle… the Galra attacked. I needed to save them. It was on the walls." Lance's eyes had gone wide and he looked up at Shiro in desperation. "I have to make sure they're okay. I was supposed to go with them. I need to make sure." Lance was kicking off his blanket, but his limbs didn't want to cooperate and he groaned when pain shot through his body. He felt it in every joint and limb, a sharp ache that made his head pound and his stomach clench. 

Shiro grabbed him to keep him from falling off the bed. Lance could hear Shiro saying something and Coran answered, but the words got drowned out by a high pitch ringing in his ears. Lance shook his head to clear it. His surroundings came back to him slowly. 

"Lance, you're not going back there." Shiro had a hard edge to his voice now and he was holding Lance's shoulders firmly. "Do you understand? It's not safe. The Enseldians were not safe."

"They loved me." Lance could feel sudden tears forming in his eyes. He was hurting and there was some part of him that felt like it was unraveling. "They love me," he said again. Because it was true. It was true. They loved him and Triesa loved him and that was what being safe was. If he was with them then he was safe and warm and loved more than anything.

"Lance, they were killing you." Shiro's fingers pressed into Lance's arms. Lance opened his mouth and shut it. A low choking sound escaped his throat. 

_Something. Something's wrong._

It was a terrifying and familiar thought. One he'd had the whole day, no, 10 days that he was with Sayna and the others. But that couldn't be right. Sayna said he'd just arrived.

_Something's wrong._

Lance jerked forward, a sudden sob ripping from his throat. It _had_ been days. It had been so many days and he let it happen. 

He buried his fingers in his hair and pulled hard. Shiro thought he could hear the strands breaking, being torn from the roots. 

The temple. Triesa and, no, what was happening? 

Hands on his face, fingers being shoved down his throat. Burning filling his mouth and spilling down to his stomach and then quiet and calm and love. 

Lace wailed loudly, his throat straining as the muscles in his neck tensed.

"Lance." Shiro pulled him into his arms. But Lance kept screaming.

"It's okay. It's okay."

"I was going to die for them! I would have. I would have..."

"Shhh... Shhhhh..." Shiro placed his hand over Lance's twisting fingers, brushing away the strands of hair that Lance had pulled out. "Don't hurt yourself. Don't."

Lance's fingers went still. The tiniest bit of relief passed through Shiro. His screams tapered off, but he sobbed so hard that he gagged. 

"I thought-I thought- She said they loved me. What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing. You didn't do anything wrong."

"If they don't love me, then nobody does."

"Did she tell you that?" Shiro bit out, his anger overtaking his quiet reassurances. He took a deep breath before continuing on. "That's not true, you're not unloved. You're cared for so much. You are loved. Really. Your family on Earth, all your friends, Blue and us. You are loved."

"Yeah," Hunk finally piped up. He'd been watching in a state of extreme anxiety for the past few minutes, but he wanted to be there. He wanted to help. "Of course I love you, y'know?" Hunk brushed his knuckles gently across Lance's shaking back. "They were using you and I'm so, so sorry. I'm so sorry, Lance."

Lance swallowed thickly, chasing away the feeling of hands pressing down on him. "It feels really bad, it hurts," he admitted. 

"What's hurting you? Is it your head?" Shiro placed his hand gently on Lance's forehead. 

"Everything." Lance sighed. "Everything, Shiro."

"That's the effect of the poison. It's gonna pass, okay? In time." Shiro looked to Coran, who gave him a slight nod. Lance shifted in Shiro's hold. He reached up and tried to wipe away his tears and snot that had been accumulating on his face. He was disgusting. He shut his eyes and pressed his forehead into Shiro's shoulder.

"They put a lot of effort into getting me to stay." Lance swallowed hard. "But all they needed to do was ask for my help."

"I know."

“I would have helped, if they had just asked me.”

_You are safe here. You are loved._

Lance started crying again.

* * *

 

They were eventually able to get some water into him and some broth that Hunk had prepared. Coran administered medicine for pain and Lance was able to fall back to sleep with relative ease.

"You should get some rest Hunk." Shiro instructed. "It's been a long day."

"I can sleep in here."

"That's fine. I'll make a bed up for you,” Coran offered and he immediately moved to set up a cot on the other side of the room.

"Hey, Shiro?” Hunk twisted his fingers together. “Are we ever going to tell him? About the battle?"

"Let's just wait on that. He's had a rough time."

Hunk nodded, but didn't say anything more.

Coran and Shiro left the infirmary, with a promise to return soon. Coran kept clearing his throat and Shiro, having an idea what he wanted to discuss, broke the silence first.

"If the Enseldians ask, tell them it was me. I'm the champion, I can do those things. They don't need to know it was Lance."

Coran hummed. "I understand, if that is your decision. But what are you telling Lance?"

"I don't know," Shiro answered honestly. 

Coran clapped a hand on Shiro's shoulder. "Steady, number one."

Shiro hadn't even realized he was shaking. 

* * *

 

They were eating dinner. Always eating dinner. 

And yet.

"Did you send that transmission out to my team?"

"Yes, Paladin Lance. It was only just this morning. Perhaps tomorrow we will receive a reply. Try these vegetables, they are from the garden."

"But you sent it when I arrived, yesterday."

"That was only this morning. You are injured and tired. It can be confusing."

That's right he was hurt. That's what was making things so fuzzy.

But.

He'd eaten this before, so how... Why was it so hard to focus?

"Oh, be careful, Paladin Lance!"

Lance had reached for his utensils and he had set his knife into his food, but his other hand had reached to steady the plate and the blade caught the skin at the base of his thumb. 

"It's fine." Lance tucked his hand away, pressing his hand into the hem of his shirt.

....

They were eating dinner. 

"Did you send that transmission out to my team?"

The answer was yes. Perhaps the response would come tomorrow. He was hurt, he was confused. 

His hand stung.

Lance saw the cut at the base of his thumb. It wasn't there before. He couldn't explain it, but it felt important. 

_Last dinner, I was hurt. Last dinner._

Lance allowed his knife to slip and he added another mark next to the first one.

It was important.

....

They were eating dinner.

"My team hasn't responded to the message yet?"

No. 

It's wrong again. His hand ached. When had he cut himself? But it was already healing...

A quick movement and he added a third mark. 

_Remember._

Remember what?

Lance pressed his hand into his shirt.

....

Again and again and again.

Four marks, five marks, six...

....

They were eating dinner. 

"Let me cut your food for you, Paladin Lance."

"Oh, thank you." Lance looked down and saw he had hurt his hand, when had that happened?

"Of course, we love you, we're happy to do anything for you."

Lance smiled as he dug his fingers into the cuts. 

Why did it hurt so much?

* * *

 

Lance woke up with a gasp. 

He felt sickness building in his stomach and it reminded him of burning being forced down his throat and hands forcing his jaw shut against it. 

He stumbled out of bed, forgetting that the infirmary cots were higher off the floor than the bed in his room aboard the castleship… higher up than his bed on Enseldia. 

Lance slapped his hand over his mouth, willing the nausea to stop. He made his way to the connected bathroom, briefly realizing that he could hear Hunk snoring from a nearby cot. He shouldn't wake him. He'd caused enough trouble for his friends with his stupidity. 

Just because he couldn't figure out he was being lied to, when it was so obvious. 

Lance shut the bathroom door and took in loud, gulps of air. Panic had gripped him now. He went to the sink and leaned heavily against it.

He caught sight of his hand and he could see the slight marks that had been there. Proof of days spent in a haze. One, two, three, four... The pod must have healed the newer ones well enough that they didn't scar. But there should be six. Or 10. There should have been 10. If he wasn't such an idiot there would be 10. 

Lance was scrabbling around in the cabinets looking for... Something. They had taken away the knife before. They had caught on, but he could find something, anything. He had to keep track. There needed to be 10. He needed there to be 10.

One, two, three, four five six seven eight nine-

Lance came back to himself all at once and he realized he had found a small pair of clippers in the cabinet. Blood was dripping down his arm and before he could try to stop it, he was throwing up in the sink. 

He dropped the clippers to the floor and choked back a sob. 

He was a mess. 

Stuttering on his exhale he went to the shower and hit the control panel until water began streaming out and steam started to fill the room. 

Lance climbed under the spray still wearing his pajamas, not bothering to shut the sliding door behind him.  Lance slipped to the floor and pressed his head into the wall. Sick and blood swirled around the drain at his feet. 

What was going on? He felt hot and cold at the same time and his head hurt. He didn't even feel like he was himself anymore. It was like being lost inside of his own skin. 

Lance pressed his hand into his side and winced at the pain from his cuts. He felt like he was losing it. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe he was still on that planet and all of this was some kind of hallucination. 

Lance began crying without warning. It hurt his chest to do so, but he couldn't stop the sobs from escaping him. 

_Please, just stop, just stop, please._

Lance cried harder.

* * *

 

"Lance?" 

Hunk was an anxious person by nature, so when he woke up to check on Lance and found the bed empty, his immediate reaction was panic. After a quick search of the room he went to the bathroom door and was relieved when he could hear the sound of water running. 

His relief didn't last long after he called for his friend and didn't get an answer. 

"Okay, I'm coming in!" Hunk called as he opened the door. The smell hit him first and Hunk realized Lance must have thrown up. Then his eyes actually fell upon his friend, fully clothed and curled up on the shower floor.

Hunk took two steps forward, but then his eyes caught sight of the blood. He darted back to the main room, hit the medical emergency button that would send an alert out to everyone, and then ran back. 

"Lance, Lance, Lance," Hunk couldn't ask if he was okay, he obviously wasn't. Lance wasn't responding; he was just staring blankly. In his haste, Hunk didn’t turn off the water. He ducked under the stream and began searching for the source of the blood. When he found the cuts that started at the base of Lance's thumb and ended at the side of his wrist, Hunk sharply inhaled through his teeth and winced. With now cool water pelting his back, Hunk gathered Lance close and pressed him to his chest. 

"Why would you do that?" Hunk asked quietly. The cuts were obviously deliberate, but Hunk had never known Lance to hurt himself like this, so why?

Lance shuddered in his arms and Hunk took it as his cue to get him out of the water. Clumsily, Hunk was able to move them both to the middle of the bathroom floor, but actually picking Lance up was proving difficult. Lance was lanky and now that he was sopping wet, Hunk worried he was going to drop him if he tried to lift him. 

"You're okay," Hunk ran his fingers through Lance's soaked hair. "You're okay," he repeated, not sure who he was trying to convince anymore. 

When Coran showed up, he very quickly assessed the situation and got to work. He grabbed towels from one cabinet and bandages from another. 

Lance came back to himself while Coran was wrapping his hand, hiding the obviously self-inflicted cuts.

"I'm s-sorry," Lance stammered out. "I thought I needed to- I was stupid- I needed to know the days." Lance rubbed at his eyes, trying to stop himself from crying once again. "They wouldn't let me have a knife anymore at dinner, I was so stupid.”

"Lance, dear boy, take a breath."

Lance did as he was told, though he was shivering hard and his breath stuttered as he inhaled. 

"You are not stupid," Coran spoke firmly as he tied off the bandage. "It's okay to be confused. It's expected really. Shiro told you about the poison that was in your system, right?"

Lance nodded and stared with wide, glossy eyes. 

"Your mind is still sorting out what happened and you're going to be confused sometimes, alright? It will pass."

Lance nodded again. 

"But," Coran held up one finger, making sure he had Lance's attention. "You cannot hurt yourself like this anymore. Alright?" 

Lance nodded slowly, he then seemed to realize he was still leaning against Hunk and he attempted to move away from him.

"Sorry, Hunk. You’re all soaked."

"It's fine," Hunk patted Lance's back with a towel. "I just want you to be okay."

Lance frowned. He didn't feel okay. He felt awful. Like he had the flu and a concussion all at once. And he couldn't stop feeling like he was going to cry. He felt like something special had been ripped from him. He understood now that Sayna and the others had been using him. He got that. But it didn't stop him from hurting.

It didn't stop his heart from breaking over it.

Lance's breathing hitched and Hunk pulled him close again. 

"It's going to be okay," Coran insisted as he began drying Lance's hair. "You're okay."

Hunk wondered who he was trying to convince.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Please do comment. I am sustained by them


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. The last chapter isn't going up this week. Hopefully, next week. Thank you everyone. Please excuse mistakes.

Shiro was waiting outside the bathroom when they came out, all huddled together, attempting to keep Lance warm. 

"What happened?" Shiro was striding forward with that concerned look again. He'd waited for them, having arrived late and not wanting to disturb them if Lance was calm. He worried about disrupting things and he knew Coran would get him if he was needed. 

Pidge and Keith both showed up to check in, having gotten the medical alert. Shiro told them it was alright, though he wasn't sure what had happened. Shiro didn't miss the way Pidge looked at him, as if she could see through him and knew he was struggling to seem in control of this situation. Keith stared for too long at him and Shiro knew it meant he was concerned. Shiro felt uncomfortable, he had to be better at this. 

They sat Lance down on his cot and Hunk made sure a towel was wrapped around him.

"I had a nightmare," Lance explained, even though it was more of a memory, even though it was so much worse than any nightmare he'd ever had. 

"You're hurt." Shiro tentatively reached for his hand and Lance let him look at it. An uncomfortable feeling prickled at the base of Lance's skull as Shiro turned his hand one way and then another.

He didn't want to be touched anymore.

But this was Shiro and Shiro cared about him. Actually cared. 

Right?

"I think a change of clothes is in order," Coran announced, breaking Lance's line of thinking. 

Lance had to use the generic, infirmary pajamas that were white, kind of scratchy and smelled sterile. Coran promised to have his regular pajamas cleaned and dried as soon as possible. Lance hoped he could get the blood out. 

Hunk offered his assistance with changing since Lance seemed shaky, but Lance refused. He was about to go back to the bathroom to change because he found he was craving privacy, but then he realized they weren't going to let him go back in there alone. Not after he had sliced up his hand. 

"Don't look at me," Lance blurted out, much more loudly than he meant to. Nobody had been looking at him, they had been talking quietly about taking shifts to watch him, but now they all stared in surprise. 

"Just... don't look at me," Lance felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment. If he kept acting weird, they were never going to trust him again.

"Okay, man," Hunk said with a nod before pointedly taking a few steps back and turning away. Shiro and Coran followed suit. They continued their conversation, staring at the opposite wall of the infirmary. 

Lance changed as quickly as he could. It was difficult and he leaned on his bed when he felt he might tip over. He couldn't ask for help now, not when he'd made such a big deal out of changing on his own. 

Changing left him exhausted and he collapsed back into the bed, too tired to be upright anymore.  

"I'm done," Lance murmured. Hunk turned back around and gave his friend a smile. 

 "You feeling a little better?"

 "Yeah," Lance lied. 

 "You should try to sleep some more. It's still early. Coran is going to stay with you and I will take over after him." Shiro, always trying to make plans. 

  _It must be how he deals with stress_ , Lance thought.

"Get some rest, my boy, I will be right here." Coran went to the computer and began quietly typing.

 "I'm going to stay too," Hunk motioned to his bed on the other side of the room. "But I'm going to try and sleep a little more."

Lance nodded. "Okay," he agreed quietly. He turned to his side, away from them all and focused on his breathing. At the moment his exhaustion overpowered the pain in his limbs and he began to slip into sleep. 

The last thing he remembered was the warmth of Hunk pulling the blanket over him and placing a hand briefly on top of his head.

Lance fell asleep with his friends' hushed whispers echoing quietly in his ears.

* * *

 

Lance awoke with a start. He didn't know what he had been dreaming, only that he felt a sense of alarm. 

As soon as he was awake enough, he realized he felt much too hot. His sweat had soaked his shirt and seemed to be soaking his blanket as well. His face felt like it was on fire. Lance kicked the blanket away and groaned when the movement hurt his legs. 

"You alright?" Shiro was there. That meant Lance had slept through Coran's shift. It hadn't felt like he'd been asleep long though. 

"S'hot," Lance slurred. 

"Coran said that might happen. I can get you a cold pack?"

"Okay." Lance pulled at the collar of his shirt to try and move the air around him at least. It didn't help much.

While retrieving the cold packs, Shiro was trying to figure out if Lance was due for pain meds when he heard the creak of the bed and realized Lance was struggling to roll himself off the mattress.

"Hey," Shiro was there in an instant, stopping his momentum. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to lie on the floor," Lance huffed. He wasn't asking for permission, he was going to get to the nice, cold floor whether Shiro liked it or not.

"Okay," Shiro wanted to argue, but Lance was determined. He would let him have this, even though he didn't think the floor was an ideal resting place for someone who wasn’t feeling well.

Shiro had a hand on his arm, keeping him from falling flat on his face, and gently settled him on his side. Lance sighed loudly and promptly turned his whole face into the cold metal. 

"Better?" Shiro asked. Lance hummed in response. It was blissful and Lance felt some of his pain ebb away. 

Soon Shiro was setting cold packs on his neck, under his armpit and one down by his feet. 

Lance sighed as he felt the coolness spread throughout his body. All the heat leeched away just leaving the icy feeling traveling up his spine.

Wait.

Lance shuddered. It was too cold now. He pushed the ice packs away and rolled onto his back. With his arms crossed around his torso, Lance let out a grumble of irritation. 

"Lance?" Shiro sounded worried and Lance felt stupid now for demanding to be on the floor. 

"Can I have the blanket?" Lance motioned to where he had kicked the thing. 

"Yeah, of course." Shiro rushed to place the blanket over him. "You're shaking. You cold?"

"I guess," Lance muttered, frustrated at his body's betrayal. 

"Do you want to get back on the bed?" Shiro asked. Lance sighed. 

"Alright," Lance sat up and felt his stomach do a flip. _Great. Just great._ Was he ever going to stop feeling like he was going to puke?

Shiro helped to sit him up and supported him as he climbed back onto the bed. It was slow going as Lance's bones had decided to ache terribly again. 

"How long is this going to go on?" Lance asked, feeling out of breath for no reason really. 

"Probably just three or four days," Shiro did his best to tuck the blanket around him.

"How many days has it been?" Lance sounded uncertain. _10 days_ was stuck in his mind, but as he eyed his bandaged hand, he knew that wasn't right anymore.

"You've only been out of the pod for about a day, Lance."

Well, that seemed like a cruel joke. 

"Lance, don't." Shiro grabbed his hand and pulled it away from the bandages that Lance had started to claw at. "Don't hurt yourself."

Lance couldn't explain that. He wasn't doing it intentionally. It just happened. When he'd hurt himself before at dinner, Sayna would grab his hand too after a while. He hadn't thought much of it. She loved him, so it was fine. He hadn't realized he'd been hurting himself or he'd forget as soon as she distracted him. Sometimes, pain could wake him up, make him realize something was wrong, but after a few moments he just carried on. Like an idiot. Believing her. 

Lance jerked his hand away. 

"Don't touch me." Lance's eyes burned with sudden tears as he tried to keep them from falling. 

"Okay, okay, Lance." Shiro swallowed the lump that had developed in his throat. "I won't."

There was a painful moment that passed between them. Lance was doing his best not to cry again and Shiro stood there, useless.

"It's time for your pain meds," Shiro finally said. "You'll feel better after you take them."

Lance tried not to think of hands forcing poison down his throat.

"Okay." Lance hated the way his voice shook. 

* * *

 

Lance awoke some time later to find Pidge staring at him. 

"Hey." She set her laptop to the side and turned all her attention on him. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," Lance answered before he could really give it much thought. 

"Shiro said you weren't feeling well." Pidge tapped her fingers absently on her knee. 

Lance hummed. Honestly, he was feeling a bit detached and figured the painkillers were still in effect. 

"Hunk said you were trying to keep track of the days. He said you were upset about it."

That was probably the politest way of saying that she had heard he had lost it and sliced his hand up.

"Yeah," Lance's eyes darted away.

"I have something for you. I thought it might help." Pidge reached into her pocket and pulled out an incredibly ordinary black marker. Lance waited a moment before he realized that was the extent of the gift.

"So you can mark your arm." Pidge uncapped the marker and demonstrated, drawing a line across her palm. "You know, so you can keep track yourself."

"You don't think it's weird that... You don't think I'm being weird?"

"No, I don't." Pidge held the marker out for Lance. He took it between his fingers and studied it before uncapping it. He made a single mark on his arm, below his bandage, before capping it.

"One day?" Lance asked, suddenly unsure. 

"You woke up from the pod yesterday. So one day finished." Pidge shrugged. "It's almost lunch time on your second day. However you want to do it, it's up to you."

Lance rolled the marker in his hand.

"Thanks, Pidge."

"No problem." Pidge picked up her laptop and went back to typing away at it.

A peaceful silence fell over the two of them. Lance wasn't in a lot of pain and he wasn't having hot and cold flashes, he just felt a little tired. It was good enough for now.

Hunk suddenly bustled into the room, carrying a meal tray. He grinned at Lance.

"Hey, how are you feeling? You hungry?" Hunk set the tray down on a side table and rolled it close. "I made a couple of different choices. There's soup, oatmeal and toast and some fruit. It should all be easy to digest."

Hunk was busying himself getting the tray ready that he didn't notice the look that Lance gave the food. 

Lance hadn't thought about it before, but now, about 10 days worth of memories came crowding into his head all at once. His first meal of the day on Enseldia was always something bland followed by fruit. He'd eaten that many times, while Sayna lied about contacting his friends and everything else.

"Soup's fine," Lance mumbled, feeling like he might throw up again if he had to look at the oatmeal. 

"You got it!" Hunk pushed the table close and then removed the oatmeal and handed it to Pidge. "You didn't eat breakfast this morning."

Pidge rolled her eyes, but took the offered bowl. Hunk picked the toast and fruit for himself and sat down in a nearby chair.

With the three of them together, it almost seemed like it could be normal again. Lance could just imagine this as another day in space. He didn't have to think about being poisoned or being used or any of it. 

He didn't have to think about how hard his hands were shaking.

"You okay?" Hunk asked. He'd seen it. Of course he had. 

"I'm fine," Lance bit out. To prove his point, he shoveled food into his mouth without pausing. It wasn't noticeable if he moved quickly. Lance swallowed down broth and then some kind of vegetable.

Lance choked without warning. 

He tried to swallow again, but something felt wrong, like his throat couldn't force the food down the right tube. He choked and sputtered and it wouldn't stop. Hunk took the bowl from his hands and patted his back, but still Lance coughed. His eyes watered from the exertion and panic. 

He couldn't breathe and it hurt and it wouldn't stop.

"I can hear air moving, his airway isn't blocked," Hunk was answering a question from Pidge that Lance hadn't even heard. 

Lance was pushing away thoughts of hands again. Whispers in his ears, talking about love and safety all while his throat burned. 

"Hey, it's alright," Hunk spoke softly. 

Lance gagged hard. 

The bit of soup came back up in his lap. Lance was relieved he hadn't been eating much lately.

Hunk rubbed his back, but Lance curled away as best he could.

"S-stop," he finally gasped out. Hunk pulled his hand away, looking like he might be on the verge of tears as well.

"Sorry, Lance." 

Lance felt guilty over it. It wasn't Hunk's fault that his head was so messed up. He knew his friend was just trying to help him.

Lance's coughing eventually tapered off and he fell back into the bed, exhausted.

"It's okay, Hunk," Lance rasped out.

Hunk was interrupted by the door to the infirmary opening and the arrival of a worried Shiro and Coran.

"I hit the alarm," Pidge explained. She didn't like to think that she panicked when Lance started struggling to breathe, but there wasn't another way to describe the way her heart had leapt into her throat.

Hunk explained what happened while Lance carefully swallowed his own saliva, willing his nausea to go away. 

Shiro grabbed the soiled blanket and replaced it with a new one. Lance forced out a quiet apology that Shiro only shook his head at. At least his uncomfortable pajamas were still clean. 

"Here, my boy, sit up. Let me see inside your mouth." Coran had grabbed a flashlight and was holding it up in one hand. Lance stared wide eyed. "I won't actually touch you. I promise."

Lance bit his lip and sucked in a noisy breath through his nose. He jerked his head in a nod and sat up. 

Lance just sat there for a minute, pulling in one breath and then another. 

"Take your time, my boy." Coran set his flashlight down. "Don't do that though." He motioned to Lance's hands where Lance was pressing into his bandage without thinking.

Lance nodded and sat both his hands on his kneecaps, steadying himself.

They all waited patiently while Lance orientated himself to the present. He took several more deep breaths, before nodding again and letting his jaw fall open slightly.

"Can you tilt your head back?" Coran asked gently. Lance sucked in another breath and tilted his head back just a little bit. 

Coran was quick, shining his light so fast that Lance wondered if Alteans had better eyesight than humans. They probably did.

"You have some scarring on the back of your throat." Coran set the flashlight to the side. He'd already known there was damage there, but he hadn't actually seen it until now. The injury was too old to heal properly from his stay in the pod. He hadn't known how much of an effect it would have on Lance, but he had hoped it wouldn't be a problem.

Things were never that easy though.

"You have to be careful. Be mindful of your food when you swallow. Chew everything more than you normally would. Alright?"

"It was soup," Lance complained. "It's liquid already."

Coran smiled softly at him and looked like he might pat his arm before he stopped himself. "You'll just have to be careful."

Lance nodded again. He couldn't bring himself to ask if the damage was from being force fed poison or from the poison itself. 

It was probably both. 

He supposed it didn't really matter either way. 

* * *

 

Before going to sleep that night, Lance put another tally on his arm. Two days.

He lay in bed as long as he could before he moved to the floor again. It wasn't as bad as the previous night, but he still felt much too warm. It was Hunk's turn to watch him and he handed Lance a blanket and a pillow. Lance took the items but set them to the side for now. He shut his eyes and soaked in the cold from the floor. 

"Is it okay if I camp out here?" 

Lance looked up to see Hunk with his own pillow and blanket. 

"Yeah." Lance shut his eyes again.

Hunk settled down about three feet away, close enough that Lance knew he was there, but far enough that he wasn't crowding him.

They both lay there in the dim lighting, not speaking. Lance had started itching at his skin, trying to keep the crawling feeling away.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hunk finally asked quietly.

Lance sniffled loudly. His nose had started running and really, his whole face felt like it was leaking. 

"Not really."

"Well, you know you can if you want, right?"

"Yeah."

Hunk shuffled around under his blanket.

"Hey, Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"You know it wasn't your fault, right? Nobody blames you for what happened to that refugee ship or anything else."

"I'm tired, Hunk."

"Okay. Good night."

That was the end of it. Lance knew he couldn't keep running away from it all, but he had the distinct feeling that if he really started to dissect everything that happened during his missing 10 days, something would break. 

"Night," Lance muttered before he pulled his blanket over himself and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Explosions and shouts and dust in the air. There was blood on his tongue. He was bleeding freely, but still he kept firing. Taking out Galra soldiers and drones as quickly as he could because he had to keep everyone he loved safe. 

Everyone he loved. 

Quiet fell. The dust settled.

This wasn't right. 

The dream changed and he was standing alone on a hill. A voice called his name, but he couldn't turn around. He stared at the ground instead. The ground that shifted from rock to cold bodies. Galra corpses and others too, his mother, his father, his siblings and his team. Their faces whirled around him and out of focus. 

Enseldians now littered the ground around him and Lance felt a wave of sickness pass through him. 

"Lance."

With every ounce of strength he had, he turned to run, but was met with stone and a familiar figure.

Triesa rose up before him, a great statue that moved and bore down upon him.

"Lance. Lance. Lance." The voice continued on, smothering him.

_You are mine._

* * *

 

Lance woke up screaming. 

 

* * *

 

The dam had broken. 

Lance was sobbing as he clawed at himself and shouted half sentences. Hunk was holding onto him as best he could to keep him from hurting himself, but Lance seemed to be in agony. The bandages had been partially torn away and fresh blood was beginning to soak through and drip down his arm. 

Coran arrived first and sat on the floor with them, speaking slowly. Asking if Lance wanted painkillers. 

"It's withdrawal," Coran was saying quietly as he steadied Lance from falling over, out of Hunk’s arms. It was the first time they had used that word for it in front of Lance. Coran had described Syliid as poison because it was. But it was also sought after in many parts of the Galaxy. Addictive, harmful and craved by those who used it. He didn't want to think about Lance that way. Craving something he hadn't understood in the first place. 

"Lance," Coran spoke firmly, "it will pass."

"You lied," Lance choked out.

"Lied?" Coran tilted his head, trying to meet Lance's eyes. "I didn't lie. I hoped you would be over the worst part when you got out of the pod.

There was a long pause while Lance cried and pulled at his hair.

"Okay, my boy, okay." Coran grabbed his hand to stop him from ripping out his hair. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed you'd be over the worst of it. I should have gone into more details." Coran paused here and sighed. "I thought I was hoping for the best, but perhaps I was being selfish. I wanted you to be okay. I'm so sorry." Coran shuffled in close, wrapping an arm around Lance's back.

"Listen now, I can give you painkillers or you can go back into the pod if you want. It's your choice."

Lance took a great gulping breath. 

"That's not even what I mean!" He forced out. His volume startled both Hunk and Coran. Hunk recovered first.

"What do you mean then, Lance?"

"My fight on Enseldia. The Galra were never there, were they?"

The air seemed to leave the room as they both fell silent. 

"I killed so many- and why? What did they want? Why-"

"Take a breath, calm down," Coran tried. 

Shiro came stumbling into the room at that moment and any hope of creating calm vanished.

"If you don't tell me things, then it's just like being back there." Lance leaned away from Hunk and glared at Shiro. "You're like them!" 

Shiro stopped dead in his tracks. 

"Lance remembered the fight," Hunk explained, his voice coming out sounding hollow. 

Shiro wanted to argue, he wanted to say it was for Lance's own good, but it was true. Shiro had been lying, purposefully keeping Lance in the dark to protect him. 

Maybe he was like them.

"Lance," Shiro took a step forward. "Lance, you weren't in your right mind."

"You shouldn't have hid it from me. None of you should have done that." Lance rubbed hard at his eyes. His head was hurting him now too. Just one more thing.

"Lance," Shiro knelt several feet away. "They were attacking the city. You did what you thought was right."

"They all died," Lance had pulled away from Hunk and was clenching his hands into tight fists. 

"Yes, they did."

"I killed them."

"It's not your fault." Shiro inched closer. "It's not your fault, Lance." Shiro swallowed thickly. "I swear it's not. You were scared and you didn't know. You did what you had to do." Shiro reached out his shaking hands. "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm so sorry."

For a moment, Lance saw the Champion, not the one who was always victorious, but the one who had lost so much of himself along the way. 

Lance wanted to be angry. He just wanted to be angry at something or someone, besides himself. But he couldn’t do that to Shiro. He couldn’t do that to his team. Because when he looked in Shiro’s eyes he realized he was scared. Scared and uncertain. Hunk sounded like he was crying behind him.

They were all so scared.

Lance fell forward into Shiro's arms and sobbed hard. He dug his fingers into Shiro's back and he knew it must have hurt, but Shiro didn't complain. 

They both held on for a long time.

* * *

 

Shiro and Coran told Lance everything they knew about the battle. They all sat on the floor and tried to talk Lance through it all. About the holy war, and that this kind of fighting had been going on for years. That Lance wasn't to blame for what happened. They repeated that part again and again.

"Sayna and the others would have been killed if I wasn't there."

"That seemed to be the intention of the other Enseldians, yes." Coran drew in a slow, deep breath through his nose. A calming method that he'd been using a lot the past few days. 

Lance stared into the distance and then gave his head a shake to clear it, but he winced at the movement. 

"You're due for pain medicine." Coran stood up from the floor with a stretch. 

"How much longer?" Lance's voice cut through the tense atmosphere and made them all freeze. 

"How much longer am I going to feel like this?" Lance spoke slowly and he looked up at Coran with a new kind of desperation. 

Coran stopped himself from responding with something vague. Lance wanted the truth. He deserved the truth. 

"I don't know." Coran breathed in. "My offer still stands. If you want to go back to the pod again, we can do that."

"But you don't know how long that would take."

"No, I don't."

The Galra would keep attacking them and Lance had already been away for so long. So many days with no way to form Voltron. He couldn't keep doing this to his friends.

"I will stay then."

"You sure?" Hunk whispered. He'd been watching Lance fall apart and it was one of the most painful things he'd ever seen. 

"I want to help." Lance winced and he wondered if at one point he had said something similar to Sayna. He couldn't remember. 

"It's your choice," Shiro spoke carefully. He needed to be clear. Lance had a choice this time.

Lance nodded. For the first time in a long time, his mind felt clear.

"I want to help."

* * *

 

Lance was on a steady dose of painkillers to keep him from wanting to claw his own skin off. 

Though Lance had been adamant about staying out of the pod so he could help in the fight against the Galra, there were several bad days and bad nights all in a row where Lance wasn't able to do much of anything.

Lance would move from the floor to the bed to the bathroom to throw up and then back to the floor to start the cycle over again every night. He was always tired, but sleep often evaded him unless he had just taken his painkillers. Then he had nightmares when he did sleep. They weren't sure if he was remembering things or if the nightmares were of something new. Lance wouldn't say.

The nights were the worst. But every morning, Lance would wake up, count the tally marks on his arm and keep going. He was on the sixth mark when he asked to be moved back to his room. Worrying over making him feel trapped or stuck, Coran and Shiro agreed to the move, as long as someone stayed with him. 

"I'll watch him," Hunk promised quietly to Shiro. Hunk basically moved into Lance's room at that point and Pidge was a frequent visitor there.

One night, not too long after the move, Lance was redrawing the marks on his arm, keeping them from fading away, when Hunk finally spoke up.

"You know we wouldn't lie to you about how many days have gone by, right?" Hunk had been watching him closely, observing while Lance redrew a mark and then counted the number he had so far. He was recounting over and over.

"I know," Lance finally capped the marker. "But it's something I can see. I want to get it right this time."

Hunk felt a swell of sadness. This time. It didn't make sense. But he knew the marks made Lance feel calmer overall, so he wouldn't say anything against them.

"Hey Lance?" Hunk started to settle down into his bed. 

"Yeah?"

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," came the quick reply. 

"Okay. But you know you can right?"

"Yeah, I know." Lance slipped under his blanket and pulled it around him.

"Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"You know we love you, okay?"

"Yeah, I know." Lance rolled to face away from his friend.

"And you're safe here. I promise you are."

"I know, Hunk." _I don't want to talk about this. Stop saying that_. "I know. Good night."

* * *

 

Allura had been keeping the ship moving for days. Avoiding confrontation while they could. They knew they couldn't run forever, so after checking to see how Lance was feeling, Shiro had them go through some basic maneuvers in the Lions. Luckily, Blue had an incredibly calming effect on Lance and when she did a somersault through the air, it was the first time they'd heard Lance laugh since he’d returned. It was short and not nearly as loud as it should have been, but it was there. 

They were making progress.

* * *

 

Coran cut back slightly on Lance's painkillers. He was trying to moderate it. They didn't want him developing another dependency on anything. Not that they said that, but Lance knew they were thinking it. 

Lance had started going for long walks around the castle when he was overcome with the urge to do something. Coran said it was normal for him to be craving the Syliid, but Lance only felt fear if he thought about it. The memory of the calm and warmth that followed his sessions at the Enseldian temple were overshadowed by feeling trapped, confused and terrified. He didn't want any more of the stuff. 

But his body was being stupid.

So he went for walks. He explored rooms he hadn't before and found a few cozy places that he could sit and watch the stars alone. 

He was on one of his walks when he passed by the training room and figured he'd look to see who was in there. 

Keith was aggressively beating up the sparring bot. Lance briefly wondered what Keith was pissed off about now, before he turned to leave.

"Lance!" Keith suddenly shouted. When Lance spun back around, he found Keith shuffling his feet and staring at the floor.

"Yeah?" Lance raised an eyebrow. They hadn't talked or even seen much of each other for days. The absence now made things feel awkward. 

"Do you want to spar?" Keith blurted out quickly.

"Coran and Shiro say I should take it easy."

"Yeah, but do you want to?"

Lance blinked. His mouth turned up in a slight smirk.

"You're on."

Not having their armor, they couldn't do anything too intense. They both took a training sword and started working on blocking and parrying. It was more of a gentle practice than a competition. Lance still found it to be invigorating though. It had been a long time since he'd trained with anyone. Shiro had him running laps and doing general exercises. It was true that he tired easily lately, but he wasn't a baby. He missed working with the others. Even if he did feel hesitant to actually use his bayard again.

Lance's foot slipped and he teetered off balance. Keith immediately grabbed his arm to steady him. 

"I'm fine," Lance forced out. His forehead was sweating and he couldn't get the room to stop tilting from one side to another, but he was fine.

"I need a break," Keith said pointedly as he let go of Lance and walked to the side of the room, toward his waiting water pouches. "Want one?" Keith called back.

Lance swallowed the extra spit that had pooled in his mouth and straightened up. "Sure."

They ended up both sitting against the wall of the large room, drinking in silence.

"I kicked your ass," Keith remarked out of nowhere. Lance leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes.

"I guess you did."

Keith's mouth turned down in a frown. Unhappy with Lance's admit to defeat. 

"Are you ever going to come back?"

Lance blinked his eyes open. Come back? He'd been back. Lance pulled his sleeve up and ran his hand down the row of tally marks. There were nearly twenty now. 

"Don't-" Lance dug his fingernails into his skin. "Why would you say it like that?"

"Sorry. Don't be upset. I'm sorry, okay?" Keith shifted uncomfortably. "Don't hurt yourself... Please."

Lance's hand fell away, but he kept his sleeve rolled up. 

"I know-" Lance started, but stopped and took a breath. "I'm acting weird. I know."

"I didn't think you were acting weird." Keith scratched the back of his neck and cast his eyes down. "I thought you were acting sad."

"Oh," Lance felt his throat close up. "Okay," he forced out. He sounded like he was being strangled. Or like he was going to start crying. But really, he had cried enough for the rest of his life. He wasn't going to cry again. 

"Lance- don't- I'm sorry. Do you want me to get Hunk?"

Lance wiped his tears away in frustration. There wasn’t any reason to act like this. 

"No, just give me a second. I don't want to bother him."

"But he doesn't mind."

Lance buried his face in his knees and didn't respond further. Keith shuffled and scooted slightly closer. 

They sat quietly for a long moment; the only noise was Lance's forced breaths.

"Some people are assholes," Keith blurted. Lance actually looked up, startled by the bluntness. 

"What?" Lance finally pulled his sleeve back down, covering the marks he had made. 

"Some people are assholes," Keith repeated. "But everyone on this ship is important to each other. And we wouldn't do what they did to you. Ever."

"I know."

Keith balled his hands into fists.

"We never stopped looking for you when you were missing. I don't think Shiro slept at all. I know Pidge didn't. And now, Allura has been moving the ship constantly because she doesn't want us to be attacked while you're not feeling well."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not telling you so you can be sorry. But you should know. Getting drugged and going through withdrawal, that's bullshit and it shouldn't have happened. But," Keith caught Lance's eye briefly before looking away again, "It's never going to happen again."

Keith nodded to himself. "Shiro wouldn't let it, and I won't either. I swear. We'd never let them take you again." 

Lance was staring wide eyed. Keith and Shiro and the team, they weren't all powerful, they couldn't control what happened.

"So, don't worry, I guess is what I'm saying."

"Promise?" The word escaped Lance in a desperate rush and he knew he sounded like a child. Keith shouldn't promise. They were fighting a war. Anyone could be captured by malignant forces. 

Keith turned and locked his eyes onto Lance's.

"I promise." 

Lance could only nod slightly in response. Some part of him told him it was ridiculous, Keith was a teenager, Shiro was only human, they couldn't control the universe. 

Still, it made the tightness in his chest loosen. It was suddenly much easier to breathe. 

He smiled softly.

Lance bumped his shoulder into Keith's side. 

"Thank you." 

* * *

 

Coran said he was a pioneer for Syliid poisoning recovery. The first human to come in contact with it. He supposed it was meant to make him feel better about still being unable to sleep and puking up his food every other meal.

Despite the lingering symptoms, Lance was doing better. He smiled more and he would join them for group activities. And when they first formed Voltron again there was a sincere feeling of relief that flooded through all of them. 

Lance was coming back to them.

He still had a lot of trouble and even though he kept his sleeves rolled down, they knew he was still marking his arms. Pidge had told them he was. 

"How do you know?" Hunk asked curiously. Hunk hadn’t caught him writing on his arms in days.

"He asked me for a new marker yesterday." Pidge whispered. They were all curled up on the couch for a movie night and Lance had fallen asleep on Hunk's shoulder. Shiro and Keith were acting as bookends for the group, each sat on the ends of the couch. Shiro was staring intently at the film that was playing, but anyone who knew him could tell he was listening carefully to the quiet conversation between Hunk and Pidge. 

"He's going to run out of room," Hunk remarked. 

"I think he's using both arms now," Pidge tilted her head and leaned around Hunk to study Lance's sleeping form, as though she could see the marks through the fabric of his shirtsleeves.

"It's not hurting anything," Keith said from his place beside Pidge. Hunk looked over Pidge to meet Keith's eyes.

"It's not that. But it means he still worries about losing track. He doesn't need to."

"Just leave it alone, he'll figure it out."

"He's waking up," Shiro cut in. It was true, Lance was shifting in his sleep, but mostly Shiro didn't want anyone arguing right now. It caused unnecessary tension and Keith had a right to be sore over the subject.

When Shiro had met Keith, the boy had some ticks. He hoarded food and slept with his shoes on. When Shiro finally asked about the shoes, Keith had ignored the question completely. When he asked again about a year later, Keith only said he never knew when he would have to move somewhere else. Eventually, Shiro learned that in Keith’s life there had been an incident moving from one home to another where he'd gotten pulled out of bed with only his socks on. It was days before he had shoes again; an oversight by the adults around him that had an impact on Keith for years. 

But he had made progress. 

Lance yawned and stretched his arms out in front of him. Shiro caught sight of the edge of a black mark drawn on his wrist. 

They were all making progress. 

* * *

 

Lance jolted up in bed with a gasp. He took in great gulps of air as he tried to stop his racing heart. It was going fast and pounding out an uneven rhythm. 

"Lance?" Hunk's voice came from the bed he'd made on the floor for himself. Hunk's bed was a large collection of blankets and pillows that grew the longer he camped out in Lance's room. He had taken over a large amount of the floor now. 

"Lance?" Hunk repeated. "You alright?" 

Lance sucked in a shaking breath. 

"I don't think so." 

Hunk could hear the tears in his friend's voice. He sat up and studied Lance's form in the dark. He didn't know if he should bring the lights up or not. Lance had been insisting he was okay, even though he wasn't, for so long that Hunk had been caught off guard by his admission.

"Do you want to tell me what your dream was about?"

Because he had obviously been having a nightmare. Lance fidgeted and choked back a sob. 

"Can I just come down there?" Lance spoke before he could change his mind about it. He had been pushing them all away, terrified of being that close, but now he felt like he was going to shake apart if something didn't change right now. 

"Of course, of course you can." Hunk immediately started rearranging blankets, making room, but Lance didn't give him much time. He slipped from the bed and collapsed into the blanket pile in one swift movement. 

Lance took in one final gulp of air before he began sobbing hard. 

Hunk grabbed him and pulled him close, as if he was worrying that Lance was literally going to fall to pieces if he didn't hold him together. 

"It's okay. It's okay," Hunk muttered into his friend's hair. They stayed like that for several minutes before Hunk realized that Lance was speaking through his sobs. 

Something about a temple. Sayna. Syliid. Then, again. The temple, Sayna, the Syliid. Hands and fingers and it hurt...

Hunk realized Lance was recounting the times he was force fed the Syliid. Though it was disjointed and he couldn't understand a lot of it through the tears, it seemed like he was going in order. 

It all sounded like the same nightmare over and over again, but there would be little differences that Hunk would catch.

"After dinner, I asked to just go back to m-my room. I was scared and I didn't know why. But she said I should go with her. She said it was important." Lance pressed the palms of his hands into his eyelids. "She said they loved me."

Hunk was angry. Angrier than he could remember feeling in a long time, but Lance was talking and he dare not interrupt now.

"It was always the same. But on the last night-on the last night- I didn't fight it." Lance's voice had lowered in volume. Hunk strained to catch it. "I just ate the Syliid. And they were so pleased with me. I wanted them to be happy with me. Even though it hurt. It still hurt." Lance dissolved into tears again. "I'm so s-stupid."

"Lance, you're not. You're not," Hunk finally cut in. "You're not stupid. You were drugged, okay? You weren't able to think clearly."

Lance leaned into Hunk, soaking his shirt in tears. He breathed in and out, matching Hunk's chest movements. He was trying so hard to calm down. 

"Wish this hadn't happened," Lance finally said. It was childish, to wish bad things away. Lance was old enough to know better. But it was what he honestly felt.

"Me too," Hunk whispered. Lance pulled in another shaking breath. 

"I'm sorry, Hunk."

"Don't be sorry. Don't. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm going to stay with you. As long as you need me."

"Thank you," Lance's words were muffled by Hunk's shoulder, but he still heard them clearly.

Hunk held on to him as tightly as he could.

* * *

 

The Galra got tired of chasing the castleship eventually. Instead they began raiding mostly their allies’ planets and taking prisoners, just to try to lure Voltron into a fight. 

And fight they did.

Voltron jumped from one prison to another, fighting and freeing as many as they could. 

They arrived at the largest facility yet and were startled to find that in preparation of Voltron's arrival, the prison had been evacuated by the Galra. Just the Galra, not the prisoners. It was a trap, of course it was. When Pidge discovered the whole place was set to blow, there was the most chaotic frenzy of prisoner rescuing they had ever had to do.

Pidge was working to stop the countdown, but it wasn't looking good. It became a mission to get out as many as they could rather than a full prisoner evacuation. 

Lance was bolting down a row of cells when an alien with large eyes and four arms stopped him.

"The pit cell!" They were pointing down an off shoot hall to the right. "They put the kids in the pit cell!" 

"Okay, got it! I got it!" Lance barreled down the hallway, pushing past all different aliens who were running for their lives. He ran until the sounds of shouting and screaming died down. The walls here were made of hard stone and there was just nothing there. Lance spun in a circle. In the back of his mind, he knew he was struggling. He could feel the edges of his brain fraying. He was trying so hard not to think of a distress signal, a refugee ship, a failed solo mission...

"Pidge, how much time do we have?" 

"About twelve dobashes, you need to head back."

"I gotta check something first."

"Lance-"

He muted the chatter for the moment because there was something there. A loud sniffling and small gasping breaths. 

Crying kids, trying to be quiet.

He followed the sound further, listening hard.

"Hello?" He called softly. "It's okay. Where are you?" 

Lance heard a small gasp and he looked down at a grate in the floor. _Pit cell. Okay._  

Lance tried to pull the grate free, but it was shut with an old metal lock. It was different from a lot of the cell doors that were connected directly to the security system. 

"Stand back, okay?" Lance waited a moment and then shot the lock off. If he moved fast, he could manage to shoot his bayard with no problem. It was when he thought too much that his fingers still shook....

He wrenched the grate away and tossed it to the side. Lance lowered himself into the cell and peered into the darkness. He immediately saw several small figures all huddled together and a few sets of wide eyes staring back at him.

 And among them, something familiar that sparkled in the dark.

 A small figure moved forward with arms outstretched.

 Gifts of flowers and rocks and always with so many questions for him...

 There was the splash of shimmering freckles he remembered.

 "Paladin Lance!" 

 Lance couldn’t breathe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. Please do leave me a comment. I love and appreciate them. I will be back as soon as I can with the last chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed I added a chapter. It was getting out of control and I had to split it up. I apologize for the wait. Please excuse mistakes, it is nearly 6am. I haven't slept.

"Aleese,” Lance choked out the name without thinking. He couldn't remember a lot about her, but he knew her all the same.

"Paladin Lance!" Another child chimed in.

Lance felt like his vision was tunneling.

"Torlin." Lance bit his tongue, trying to keep the phantom burning sensation away. He was here. He was in a Galra prison and he needed to get them all out. There wasn't time to fall apart now.

"Come. We're leaving." Lance reached down and all at once several kids were climbing over each other to get to his arms. He only knew Aleese and Torlin, the others were from a variety of planets, some he recognized, others he didn't. He picked up each one and set them on the edge to the pit.  There were eight kids total.

"Pidge, time?" Lance heaved himself up and looked around at his several young charges. He picked up Torlin because he was the smallest.

"About four dobashes, what are you doing? Get out of there."

"There are these kids." Lance was pushing them forward. "We have to run, follow me." Lance was picking up his pace and they all jogged behind him on their small, tired legs. "Can Keith or Shiro get here? To help me carry them?"

There was a long pause and Lance felt a jolt of panic. If he didn’t have help, they wouldn’t have time-

"They're on their way. Run."

Lance ran as fast as he could with seven kids hobbling after him. He picked up Aleese as well, because it was a habit, and he shouted encouragement at the others to keep moving. Finally, Shiro and Keith both came bolting down the tunnel towards them. Once they reached Lance, they spun around sharply and began picking up kids and running back the way they had come. Shiro had three in his arms and one hanging off his back while Keith picked up the remaining two.

"I couldn't leave them." Lance explained, gasping.

"I know. Just run," Shiro forced out between breaths.

They all ran harder than they ever had.

There was a shuttle waiting for them. Pidge was in the pilot seat, she had stayed as long as she could to keep the prison from exploding, but she couldn't stop it in the end.

"You've got 30 ticks!" Pidge shouted.

One more stretch and they were out. Lance distantly realized it was a cargo shuttle and it wouldn't move as fast as they would like. It was chosen for its capacity to hold all the prisoners they could carry. There were already about 20 aboard and waiting to escape.

Pidge was taking off as soon as their feet were scrambling up the loading ramp.

Lance breathed huge gulps of air as he collapsed to the floor and held tightly to his kids. He could tell from the sound, that the ship was in the air and moving upwards. Freed prisoners clumped together as the shuttle suddenly trembled and rocked.

The prison had exploded.

Everything shook and the lights flashed. Several people let out screams.

The shuttle hit the atmosphere with one final jolt and then everything leveled off and went quiet. Everyone gave a collective sigh of relief.

Lance sat up, leaned against the shuttle wall and looked to the children still in his arms.

"Aleese, why are you here? Where is Sayna?"

"Oh, shit," Keith breathed.

"Keith," Shiro warned automatically. They were surrounded by kids after all.

"Shiro, she's an Enseldian." Keith spat the word and motioned angrily. His bayard flashed into his hand.

"She's a child!" Lance snarled. His eyes narrowed and his grip around the two children tightened.

"Lance..." Shiro could see something changing in Lance. Something dangerous. "Lance, take a breath."

Several aliens were looking at them, clearly troubled by the outburst.

"Aleese, where is Sayna?" Lance repeated, though he didn't stop glaring at Keith.

"She's not here, Paladin Lance. Me and Torlin were playing outside the tunnels. We got caught." Lance swallowed hard, tried not to choke on the blood from his chewed tongue.

“Lance?” Shiro tried again.

Lance deflated suddenly. His protective undercurrent leaving him like a dying last breath.

"Shiro," Lance forced out, "can you take them?"

"Paladin Lance, we want to stay with you!" Aleese wrapped her arms around his neck.

Lance grimaced hard at the title. God he wanted to keep them with him, to keep them safe. Something drove him to, but it felt dark and treacherous.

"Go with Shiro for now. He'll take care of you."

Shiro was picking them up, but they cried and clung to their Paladin.

"I can't, babies, I'm sorry. Go with Shiro." Lance pried their fingers from his chest plate. "Go on."

Shiro pulled them into his arms and tried to calm them, but they were crying hard now. All the kids nearby were looking misty eyed and Lance couldn't take it for one more second.

He stood on shaking legs and walked quickly from the loading area and into the cockpit; grateful that the ship had a wall to separate the two sections. He slid the door shut behind him and immediately slipped down to the floor.

"You hurt?" Pidge asked from her place in the pilot seat.

Lance shook his head.

"Want to sit up here with me?" She motioned to the copilot seat. Lance shook his head again.

"What happened?"' Pidge finally asked. Lance tore his helmet from his head and threw it away from him.

"Lance! What happened?"

Lance opened his mouth, turned his head and puked on the cockpit floor.

As Pidge shouted for help, Lance broke apart. All his pieces that he'd been holding together for weeks all smashed to bits. All because of two little kids who loved him so much.

Keith was suddenly there, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him into his arms.

Through the rushing in his ears, Lance could hear Keith whispering fiercely. "I promised. You aren't going back there. You aren't. I swear it."

Right. His team wouldn't let him get taken. They wouldn't.

_You are loved._

Lance sobbed until he was exhausted from it.

* * *

 

Shiro noticed a different problem right away. When they were still on the shuttle, all the other children were taken in by their own kind and cared for. But the Enseldian children were ignored.

Shiro had set them down and it was painfully obvious that they were being avoided by everyone else. In fact, the others were giving Shiro odd looks whenever he reached down to pat a hand or the top of a head.

As they were loaded onto the Castle of Lions, Shiro heard a hushed conversation as a group walked past.

"They must not know."

"I thought everyone knew about the Enseldians."

The kids shifted to stand behind his legs and he pointedly turned away from the speakers.

"Come on." Shiro had only just gotten the kids to stop crying. He didn't want them to start up again. He would have to ask Coran about this. They needed someone to watch them. He couldn't spend all his time keeping an eye on them. He needed to check on his team, he needed to check on Lance.

“Let’s go.” He took their hands and led them away.

* * *

 

Lance, Keith and Pidge didn't emerge from the cargo shuttle even after they had docked for several minutes. After searching for too long, Shiro finally found Allura and she agreed to watch the children and make sure they were fed and had a place to rest.

By the time Shiro made it back to the cargo ship, Pidge was the only one there, sitting in the pilot seat with her knees drawn up.

"Lance and Keith went to find Hunk. Lance is probably back in his room by now."

"Right." Shiro hovered. Lance was most likely with Hunk by now, so he was being looked after, but Pidge was sitting alone.

"Are you alright?" Shiro needed to be sure.

"I checked for Matt and Dad there, at the prison."

"What did you find?" Shiro kept his voice even.

"Nothing." Pidge straightened her legs out and hit a few buttons on the control panel, powering the shuttle down. "But it took too long to look. I found the countdown too late. If I had found it sooner-"

"Hey, it's not your fault."

"I almost killed Lance." Pidge stood from her seat. "And we could have saved more."

"It's not your fault."

Pidge sighed.

"Right." She didn't sound like she believed him. She picked up Lance's helmet from where he had thrown it. "I've got some stuff to work on." She handed the helmet to Shiro. "You should check on him. Keith was doing his best, but Lance was pretty freaked out."

Over Lance’s sobbing, Keith had explained to her briefly what had happened. She would have been upset too if she was in Lance's position.

"Right." Shiro shifted the helmet from one hand to the other. "Try to eat something when you get the chance." Shiro knew she forgot sometimes and if he got busy with Lance or helping with the freed prisoners, he might not have time to ask her again later.

"I know," Pidge called back as she headed for the exit.

Shiro fidgeted. He would have to try to talk with her when things calmed down, but for now, he had a few other team members to check in with.

_One step at a time. It's going to be fine._

Shiro took a deep breath and moved his feet.

* * *

 

Keith was sitting at the foot of the bed, keeping watch. That's the only way Hunk could think to describe it. It was as though Keith was expecting something terrible to burst into the room and attack them. Hunk wanted to tell him to relax, because Keith's tense demeanor was making him more anxious, but Lance wasn't bothered by it. In fact, Lance seemed relieved that Keith was watching the door so intently.

While they had gotten Lance to change into more comfortable clothes and lie down to rest, they were both still in their armor. Hunk had taken off some of his plating so he could sit beside Lance on the bed more comfortably, but he still had most of it on.

Lance had managed to stop crying, but he kept pulling in loud breaths and then holding them. He was just tapping his chest at first, but Hunk stopped him when he started to claw at it.

"Don't hurt yourself." Hunk gently tapped at his fingers.

"My chest hurts," Lance admitted. He opened and closed his fist near his sternum and shuddered.

"Can I try something?" Hunk set a hand on Lance's shoulder and waited to see if Lance was okay with the contact. His friend nodded.

Hunk moved his hand from Lance's right shoulder, across his chest, to the left shoulder. When Lance didn't protest, Hunk moved back the other way, careful not to put too much pressure into the action.

Lance had been complaining about his chest hurting for days. Hunk was only replicating what he had seen Lance do on occasion, but he was steadier and not pressing too hard, the way Lance sometimes did.

Soon, Hunk was moving in time with his friend's breathing. Slow and deliberate. Lance shut his eyes and some of the tenseness left his shoulders.

Hunk watched as his fingers moved along Lance's collarbone. Despite their best efforts to persuade him to eat, Lance had lost weight. Lance only ate small portions of anything given to him. He'd slip his leftovers to the mice or say he was feeling sick and leave his plate practically full. Hunk knew Lance wasn't feeling well, he'd seen him throw up enough times after eating to know he felt awful. However, the consequence of the lack of food was becoming noticeable now.

Lance looked gaunt.

Hunk pulled his hand away when it seemed like Lance was drifting off to sleep. He glanced at Keith who was still staring at the door with great intensity.

"Are you okay?" Hunk asked before he could stop himself.

"I'm fine," Keith answered, only sparing Hunk a quick glance. Hunk was about to tell him to relax when the door slid open and made them all jump. Lance's eyes fluttered back open in surprise, but when he saw it was only Shiro he shut them again.

"How is he?" Shiro leaned around Hunk so that he could study Lance.

"Tired," Hunk reported. "Blood is from biting himself."

They had cleaned him up to the best of their ability, but the corner of Lance's mouth still had a bit of red staining it. He knew Shiro would want an explanation.

"Does he- Lance, do you need to go to the infirmary?" Shiro was talking too loud, as if he worried Lance couldn't hear him.

Lance opened his eyes once more and did his best to look like he hadn't been crying hysterically earlier.

"No." He swallowed back the bit of blood that had been pooling in his mouth. "Freed prisoners need it more. It's not bad."

"Will you tell someone if you need to go?"

"Yeah," Lance hesitated, weighing in his mind if it was a lie or not. "I will," he decided.

"Alright." Shiro straightened up. "I'm going to go assist with our new passengers. I will be back to check in as soon as I can."

They all nodded in understanding and Shiro headed out.

Lance sat up slowly. He needed to get it together. He couldn't be the reason that both Hunk and Keith weren't out there helping with the freed prisoners.

"You guys should go. I'll be alright." It sounded fake and he grimaced at his own words.

"I'm staying." Keith didn't leave any room for argument.

"I want to stay too." Hunk smiled. "Alright?"

Lance rubbed at his eyes and gave a small nod. He knew he should feel guilty for keeping them, but he couldn't help the swell of relief that came over him. Because no matter what he said or told himself, he was absolutely terrified.

"It's going to be okay." Hunk put an arm around him. "You're okay."

Lance turned his head and hid his face in Hunk’s shoulder. He was determined not to cry, but a few tears may have slipped out anyway. Hunk didn’t say anything if he noticed.

* * *

 

For days, the castle was crowded with freed prisoners. Hundreds saved and an uncounted amount lost. Shiro wouldn't let them look up the number. Pidge especially wasn't allowed to go into the records and find the ones that were left in the explosion.

She did anyway.

Their latest mission was far from a victory, but they had saved many lives. Coran said that's what they needed to focus on.

Plans were immediately set for returning everyone to their homes or as close as they could get.

Shiro was in the middle of offering directions to some sleeping quarters to a confused group when Coran approached him.

Coran's face was too still and in absence of a greeting, he brought a hand to his chin and quietly breathed out Shiro's name.

Coran was trying to figure out the right words to say.

It was never a good sign.

"What's happened?" Shiro's thoughts immediately went to Lance. It had been a while since he had checked on him today. Lance had been staying in his room for days and he almost always had at least two others with him. Shiro actually had been meaning to talk to Keith because he was pretty sure he wasn't sleeping, choosing instead to stand guard or patrol the hallways.

"No, nothing happened exactly," Coran was quick to reassure him. It didn't quite work. "Everyone has been organized and, well, we had recorded everyone's name and home planet, I was going through the records," Coran was nearly rambling and Shiro took a deep breath to steel himself. "I realized that, besides the children, there is actually one more adult male Enseldian on board." Coran sucked in a breath and handed Shiro his data pad. "Here. Under the name Zentun."

Shiro couldn't read the writing, but he narrowed his eyes at the image that had been recorded.

"Where is he?" Shiro's tone was clipped as he gripped the pad too hard.

"Alone on one of the observation decks."

Alone. Right. Coran had explained to him that Enseldians had always carried a bad reputation, but it had apparently gotten much worse in more recent years. There were rumors of them being cursed or actually poisonous. Coran assured him that despite the fact that Enseldians were constantly around Syliid, being near an Enseldian wouldn't transmit any poison. One would have to actually ingest their blood, which was highly improbable.

Shiro's feet were moving.

"Which observation deck?"

"Shiro, we don't know for sure if he has had any contact with Lance. He could be from anywhere on the planet."

"I know. I'm going to find out. Which way?"

"Third level." Coran sighed. "I will go with you."

Shiro didn't wait. He would take care of this.

* * *

 

Shiro had already stepped onto the observation deck when he realized he didn't have a thought out plan. He had been relying on his anger to provide him with words, but when that lone grey face turned towards him, he could only stare for a moment. He took a deep breath.

"What's your name?" Shiro tried to keep from scowling.

"Zentun," was the reply. The tone nearly startled Shiro. He had never heard someone sound like that. Like their vocal chords were made from harp strings.

"Do you know someone named Sayna?" That was the name Lance kept going back to. The one he would say when he was crying.

"No." Zentun's eyes narrowed.

Coran placed a hand on Shiro's shoulder.

"On Enseldia, where do you live? In one of the bigger cities?" Coran's tone sounded conversational, as though he wasn't possibly confronting someone who had hurt and used Lance so badly.

"Yes."

"May I ask how you became captured by the Galra on your own? Were you on the outside of the city? There are only two other Enseldians on this ship and they were in the desert when they were picked up." Coran pulled at his mustache, looking genuinely curious.

"Two others? You mean the Triesa brats?" Zentun bit out the words. "I don't know what hole the Galra found them in, but I was doing surveillance near the volcano. It's been dormant for years, but we still check on it. That's why I was picked up." Zentun stood. "I was out in the open. I would guess if there were no other Enseldians captured then the Galra must have sent in only drones after their first preliminary wave."

"Drones?"

"It's what they always do. The Galra know not to stay too long on Enseldia. So they send in their drones and we fight our battles against robots. They're cowards."

Zentun was giving Shiro a cold look, his eyes had narrowed to slits.

"Strange for them to send down anyone at all to scout the outskirts like that." Zentun turned towards Coran. "Like they were looking for something."

"What do you mean?" Shiro stood up taller. Zentun walked forward, until he was only a foot away.

"Did you lose something on my planet, Paladin?" He locked his gaze with Shiro's and didn't move. Shiro didn't blink or even breathe. Zentun tilted his head one way and then the other. He let out the slightest laugh. Shiro tried not to wince as he felt warm air hit his face.  _They're not actually poisonous._

Zentun turned and walked away.

"Well, you did save me from the prison, so I suppose I do owe something to you." He sat on the ledge by the viewport. "One of your lions fell from the sky and crashed somewhere in the desert. We didn't know what it was at the time, but I've seen them now with my own eyes. It was one of yours, no mistake." Zentun shrugged. "We didn't have any interest in it really. Many ships land in the outer regions without permission to harvest the Syliid. If one crashes, it is one less nuisance for us. We don't like outsiders."

Zentun was studying them, gauging their reaction. Shiro kept his expression as neutral as possible.

"Then there was a skirmish that went badly and we lost a small portion of our army. Then you show up and begin asking for information and permission to go through that backwards colony in the desert. It's not so difficult to figure out what happened. So, again, did you perhaps lose something on my planet?" Zentun tilted his head. "Or, perhaps, someone?"

"It was me." Because that was the plan. Shiro would take Lance's place in this story. He had to, Lance didn't deserve that kind of reputation or the consequences that may follow. "I was stranded there. I-"

"I don't actually need to know." Zentun waved his hand through the air. "That is my repayment to you. My people will have enough problems dealing with the aftermath of the Galra's latest raid. We don't need to fight with Voltron. I will not breathe a word to anyone. Just return me home as soon as you can. That is all."

Shiro's mouth twitched. So apparently all the Enseldians were manipulative assholes. Good to know.

"One more matter," Coran spoke up, since Shiro had gone quiet again. "Could you find a place for the children, when we return you to Enseldia?"

"Those Triesa loving brats? You should have left them in the prison," Zentun spit out.

"They are children. Would it be possible for you to find a place for them?"

"Nobody is going to want them. Nobody trusts the Triesa followers. They've been causing problems for years."

"You really won't consider? They are still Enseldians."

"No, I will not associate myself with the Triesa filth and you're not going to find anyone outside of their own backwards, desert rock suckers who will take them." Zentun turned towards the viewport with finality.

"I see." Coran turned and tapped Shiro's elbow, calling him back from his intense staring.

Shiro turned on his heel and followed Coran out.

They walked the hallway in a tense silence.

"Shiro, out of curiosity, what would you have done if he had been one of the ones who hurt Lance?" Coran was so composed. Shiro didn't know how he managed that sometimes.

Shiro ground his teeth together. "Probably something impulsive."

He didn't know what would have happened, but something told him it wouldn't have been anything good.

"Better that he wasn't involved then." Coran tapped his fingers on Shiro's arm again. "I can help out refugees, you should go check on the others."

Shiro nodded his thanks and moved towards Lance's room without hesitation.

Coran watched him walk away and he let out a long breath. Why did he have a feeling of dread in his stomach? They were okay. They were all okay.

No reason to worry like this.

* * *

 

Lance had taken the news of another Enseldian on the ship surprisingly well. The moment Shiro said the name Zentun, Lance had relaxed.

"That doesn't sound familiar. And there weren't many males in the first place." Lance pushed his food goo around in his bowl. He'd been eating in his room, the past few days. Well, he really hadn't been venturing out of his room at all for the past few days. Hunk was sitting at the foot of the bed, working through his own bowl of goo. Keith was actually curled up in Hunk's blankets on the floor, fast sleep.

"He finally passed out," Hunk whispered loudly. Shiro was studying Keith's form, noticing Keith still had his boots on. Shiro nodded. He needed the sleep. 

"The thing is, Lance, he won't take the kids with him. He says we won't find any Enseldian that is willing to take them."

"Oh," Lance's brow creased.

"So,I wanted to ask you, what do you think we should do? We could find another planet for them. Some place safe."

Lance set his bowl to the side. His eyes darted from one corner of the room to the other before he gave his head a shake.

"Lance?" Hunk always got nervous when Lance went quiet during conversations.

"Give them back." Lance stared up at Shiro with a steady resolve.

"Lance-"

"It's their home. I'm sure they want to go back." Lance blinked hard to keep his eyes from watering, not even sure why he felt like crying now. "They'll be taken care of. Sayna and the others are very proud of the children."

Shiro finally sat down on the edge of the bed. He folded his hands in front of him, considering the logistics of it.

"It doesn't feel right," Shiro finally said.

"It's not really our call is it?" Lance moved his bowl of space goo onto the floor, he wasn't going to eat anymore and Shiro should have more room on the bed. "We can't keep them. So we give them back."

"How? Where would we even take them? Their city was mostly destroyed. They've been living in tunnels." Shiro had been trying to think this through, but nothing seemed plausible.

Lance stared down at his fingers, his eyes trailed down to the fading scars that lined the base of his thumb and wrist.

"I remember where the entrance to the tunnels are," he whispered. Hunk's breathing stopped.

"Lance, no." Shiro shook his head. "You're not coming."

Lance set one hand over his scars and he took a deep breath. Blinking, he met Shiro's eyes.

"I think I need to."

Shiro shook his head again. "You don't though. You really don't."

Shiro was scared. Lance could hear it in his voice, hidden behind the leader tone he was attempting.

"It's okay." Lance carefully folded his fingers together. He wasn't going to hurt himself right now. "I think I need to see it, y'know? When I'm able to really think."

Shiro was clenching his teeth and attempting to breathe through his nose. He wasn't succeeding.

"I don't like it," he finally forced out.

"I don't either." Lance let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a dry sob. "But I gotta face it some time Shiro."

Shiro wanted to argue, but when he looked into Lance's eyes, he couldn't tell him no. Lance was so desperate to do something. Something that would stop the nightmares and the pain. Maybe this was for the best.

"Okay," Shiro set a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Okay. I'll tell Coran and the others."

* * *

 

"What are you doing, Paladin Lance?"

Lance looked up from his position on the stone floor beside the bed.

"I was looking for something."

"What were you searching for?"

Lance's brow wrinkled.

"I'm not sure. It was- it was important."

"You are unwell, perhaps after dinner, you will feel better."

Lance felt a pang of uncertainty. It had been important. It had been...

"Come. We are having a feast in your honor." Sayna offered her hand. Lance reluctantly took it and allowed her to pull him up. A gentle hand went through his hair. He automatically leaned into the touch.

"Do not worry, Paladin Lance. Everything is alright."

That's right. He was safe and there wasn't a reason to worry.

Lance let her lead him from the room.

* * *

 

Lance's eyes snapped open.

What was that?

A dream, but also a memory. Of what?

He ran through what he knew of the time he had spent with Sayna. When had that happened? It felt like it was towards the end of his 10 days.

Lance felt his stomach turn. He had felt safe in that moment. It was wrong and so stupid.

He could feel a sob building in his chest and he fought against it. They weren't going to let him go down to Enseldia today if he woke up crying. He fought to keep his breathing quiet. It was still early, if he woke Hunk up they would know he was upset. They would think he shouldn't go. But he had to go. He had to. It was the only way to get it all to stop. He would only ever feel better if he could face it.

He had to. He had to. He had to.

"Lance?"

Shit.

"Lance, you alright?" Hunk sounded only half awake, but Lance could hear him moving, unwinding blankets from around his legs and pushing himself to a standing position.

Lance tried to answer, but his throat decided to close up and his lungs stopped drawing in air.

_No. No no no no no._

Panicked tears escaped down his face and when their warmth soaked his pillow case he knew he had messed up. He couldn't do this today. He had to keep it together.

"Lance? Take a breath." Hunk was hovering close. "Can I touch you?"

A hand in his hair, whispered words in his ears. _Paladin Lance. You are loved._

"Don't," Lance forced out. And then he was sobbing loudly. He threw out his hands and hit the wall by his bed. He did it again and again. He knew he looked like he was throwing a tantrum, but he didn't care. He was so angry at himself. He was ruining things again. It was all he had been doing for weeks.

Hunk tried his best to gently grab his hands.

"Calm down, please calm down. You're okay. You're okay."

Lance wrenched a fist free and caught Hunk in the chin. Startled, Hunk gasped and flinched away. Lance felt like he had been doused in ice water.

"Hunk! God, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"I'm fine, I'm okay." Hunk brushed it off. "Just surprised. My fault for grabbing you. I just didn't want you to hurt yourself."

"It's not your fault." Lance rubbed at his eyes, willing the tears to stop. "It's my fault. It's my fault."

"Hey, come on. It's not."

Lance took in several great shaking breaths.

_Get a grip._

"Don't tell Shiro. He won't let me go down to the planet today if he finds out."

"Lance," Hunk's eyes darted away and then back. "Shiro will still let you go. He knows it's important to you. He's not going to force you to stay. You have the choice."

"Oh." Lance hadn't realized. He had just assumed.

"But if you don't want to go- I mean- I know you said you needed to, but if you're scared. It's okay."

Lance was staring wide eyed. He hadn't realized. Hunk was scared for him. Maybe for himself too. He was trying to give him a way out.

"I'll be okay." Lance swallowed hard. "Sorry for waking you."

"Want me to sit next to you?" Hunk offered.

"No, I'm okay, really. You need to sleep."

Hunk sighed. He was really tired. He felt like he always had circles under his eyes these days. Not as bad as Keith who had been pacing the halls for nearly a week. But the stress was starting to wear on him.

Hunk settled back into his makeshift bed.

By tomorrow night, this will be over. Maybe tomorrow they will both sleep through the night.

"Wake me up, if you need me." Hunk yawned.

"Okay, I will," Lance answered softly. Hunk wondered if he was lying.

For a long time, they both stayed awake, staring silently into the dark.

* * *

 

All the other prisoners they had rescued had been dropped off. There were now only the Enseldians left. Zentun was given a small shuttle to return to the city with; nobody was interested in escorting him there.

"Not a word from me." Zentun promised with a smirk. It was the closest to a 'thank you' that they were going to get. Shiro only stared with a slightly pinched expression as he boarded the shuttle and left the castle.

Shiro heaved a sigh of relief once he was gone. They had been careful to keep him away from Lance. The last thing they needed was the Enseldian saying something to upset Lance and destroy their fragile progress.

"Just the children now," Coran said calmly. Shiro nodded. The kids had been staying mostly with Allura and Coran when they were awake. They hadn't been any trouble. Well behaved kids that would ask questions quietly about the ship or what was going to happen. And they asked for Lance. Everyday they asked for Lance. Nobody knew how to explain it to them. After a few days, Coran finally settled on telling them that their home planet made people sick and Lance was still ill from being there.

They seemed to accept the answer, but then Aleese's eyes lit up with an idea.

"When Paladin Lance comes home, he can see the healer. Then he won't be sick!" She had exclaimed.

Coran felt like he had been kicked in the chest.

"Lance is home." Coran snapped the words out more loudly than he meant to. He regretted them instantly. The children didn't understand. And while the castleship was a safe place, Coran knew it wasn't home for Lance. Lance only had one home and he hadn't been there in a long time.

They never were able to fully explain the circumstances, but after some quiet discussions with Allura, Aleese seemed to understand that Lance couldn't go back with them.

"They have a different way of thinking." Allura said softly while they were on the bridge,after the children had gone to bed.

"Yes, Princess, they do."

"She told me that Lance is theirs." Allura had clenched her hands into fists. "I told her it wasn't true, but I know she must have been told that by the adults." Allura looked up at Coran. "Is taking them back for the best?"

"Sometimes, it is not easy to tell what the right thing to do is, but I have to believe that perhaps her time with us has given her a different perspective." Coran smiled to the best of his ability. "And Enseldia needs a bit of a different perspective."

It had all been easier to discuss and speculate, but as they all went down together in the Green and Black lions, Allura wondered if it would really be alright. She had the children in her arms as she stood behind Shiro in the pilot seat. Hunk, Keith, Lance and Pidge had all flown in together, making use of Green's cloaking.

If the locals saw a lion, Shiro only wanted it to be his. Despite what Zentun had said about keeping quiet, Shiro was still prepared to take Lance's place if the other Enseldians caught on.

They didn't have to worry much. The planet had been ravaged. The city was in shambles and the ground around them was full of craters from explosives. The Enseldians had their hands full with trying to rebuild everything. Nobody paid notice to the Lion in the distance, landing near that backwards city in the desert.

That city had been basically destroyed in the latest skirmish anyway. Nothing worth anyone's time was out there anymore.

 

* * *

 

They had been instructed to keep their face shields down on their helmets. Coran was monitoring their vitals from the planet's upper atmosphere in the castleship. Well, he was monitoring Lance's vitals mostly. Lance's heart would speed up and Coran would say something or ask a question, getting Lance to respond and his heart to slow again.

Allura had stayed back with the children while Lance started his macabre tour. They all stayed close together as he moved through ruins of buildings.

"That's where they took my helmet from me. I didn't realize it at the time."

"We ate dinner over there in that building."

"I was standing up there when this exploded."

"The gardens are over there."

Lance suddenly stopped in front of a cracked wall. It had writings and drawings etched deeply into the stone.

"She said this was about me, she said they knew I was coming, but I can't read it." Lance motioned to the deep fissure in the rock. "There was a picture here. It looked like me."

"You mean before you got here, they knew you were coming? Like a prophecy?" Pidge scanned the stone.

"A prophecy," Lance repeated, sounding breathless from the word. "A savior."

"Lance," Pidge cleared her throat. "I can't read this, but some of it doesn't seem that old. They could have carved it after you arrived."

"Right." Why hadn't he thought of that? "That makes sense. It was stupid."

"I can analyze it, if you'd like?" Coran chimed in, watching Lance's heartbeat quicken and then slow.

"I'll send you my data." Pidge hit a few buttons on her arm. "Maybe you can read it."

Lance walked away, shaking his head. The others followed behind, stuck between trying to stay close and giving him some space at the same time. Keith actually had his bayard out and activated. He followed behind the whole group, keeping an eye on as much of the situation as he could.

Lance sped up. He knew where he was going. He had walked this way many times. Down the hall, the last door...

"My room," Lance whispered.

It looked the same. One of the few things that hadn't changed. His dream from the previous night came back to him as he circled the bed. There was a small table with a drawer by the bedside. Lance stood by it, thinking, knowing there was  _something._

Lance pulled the drawer open, but it was empty. He dipped his fingers into the space as though he was carefully setting something there.

_Gifts._

Lance blinked and for a moment he could see it, placing the gifts from the children into this drawer. Over and over again. In the morning the drawer would be empty and he would put the gifts in again at night before dinner. Someone must have been emptying it the whole time. If they had left it alone, it would have been obvious that more than a day had passed by.

It would have been obvious.

Lance turned around in a circle.

His dream.

Lance dove down to the side of the bed and made everyone jump in alarm.

"Lance?"

"You okay?"

"What happened?"

They all spoke at once. Coran piped up in his ear, but he ignored it. Laying on his stomach he pushed himself under the bed.

_Where?_

_Where? Where?_

He had been figuring it out. He had been trying so hard. And even after they'd taken away his knife at dinner he had still had this.

There.

In the dark, along a small ledge under the bed, was a row of five rocks.

His gifts. Lance ran his fingers over the stones. He had been keeping them. One for every day. Well, the better days that he realized something wasn't right.

Lance felt guilt over his actions. He had already been processing through this, but now that he was here again, he couldn't help the pain and surprising grief that grabbed at his heart.

He felt his breath catch.

It felt like mourning, but he couldn't tell what he was grieving for.

It choked him all the same.

"I can fit." A voice somewhere in the distance. He had to move. He couldn't let Sayna find him. She'd take away the gifts, she'd find out-

"Lance, it's okay." There was a glowing that caught his eye. What was that? What-

"It's me. You're okay."

"Pidge..." Lance gasped. His hands went to his face to wipe away the tears that had formed in his eyes, but he was met with his helmet and his face shield.

"Leave it alone, okay? Don't raise it."

Lance shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Pidge scooted closer, pressing her arm into his.

"What happened, Lance?"

Lance motioned to the rocks, unable to explain at first.

"They're mine. They were gifts." He swallowed hard. "Someone kept taking them from the drawer, so I hid them."

"Okay." Pidge nodded as if he was making sense, as if it was a normal situation. Lance picked one from its place and studied it in his hand. It was just a rock, nothing was even special about it. He wasn't even sure which child had given it to him.

"You can't bring it with though. You know that, right?" Pidge was whispering.

Right. There was traces of Syliid in everything here. He couldn't keep them. Lance put the memento back with the others. He tried to pretend it didn't bother him. He tried to pretend his hands weren't shaking.

"Is he alright?"

Startled, Lance and Pidge both looked to see Keith peering under the bed. He was scowling, but Pidge knew he was just worrying. They were all worrying.

Lance suddenly felt incredibly ridiculous. He was hiding under a bed after all.

"Ready?" Pidge asked and Lance knew that she would wait if he wasn't. They were all being so patient with him.

Sayna could seem patient with him too.

Lance tapped his fingers against his chest plate. He wished he could stop feeling like this.

"Yeah, let's go."

Pidge moved quickly out of the way and Lance scooted out after her. He muttered an apology as he saw everyone hovering around the bed. He had scared them again. They said it was okay, even though they looked uneasy.

As they left the room, Lance forced himself to look at the table. He breathed in relief when there was no tray of food. For a brief moment, he had thought there was, but of course there wasn't. He was with his team. He wasn't stuck here like before.

He was safe. He was safe. He was safe.

* * *

 

Lance knew where he was going. He had looked around and he had taken in as much as he could, but he knew he would be going back to the temple.

Still...

His feet stopped moving as he stood in the square and stared at the gaping entrance. There weren't any doors and Lance struggled to remember if there ever had been.

His face twitched. He could feel his team moving behind him, having followed him closely. They were all standing there, probably piecing together that Lance was starting to lose his nerve.

And yet.

He couldn't help the feeling of relief that bubbled up.

_Follow us._

He had been unable to follow Sayna into the tunnels before, having become too hurt and weak.

And, as he stared, he could feel the urgency come over him in waves. He had left it undone before. Unable to follow his instructions when all he'd wanted to do was be near them again...

"Lance?" Shiro questioned, sensing that something was amiss. Hunk had pulled up short. Lance had told him about the temple, through his choked sobbing Lance had told him some of the things that happened there. That would have been enough on its own, but for Hunk, this was the place where they had found Lance, hurt and bleeding and dying. He stole a glance at Pidge and found her mouth set in a frown. She didn't like it either.

"The tunnel entrance is inside." Lance didn't sound right. He sounded hollow and not there. Before Hunk could say anything, Lance strode quickly forward into the waiting dark.

Lance could hear Coran saying something in his ear, but it was lost as Lance focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

_Do it right this time._

Lance didn't even pause to wait for his eyes to adjust. He walked forward, toward the great statue, to where he nearly died all those weeks ago.

His eyes adjusted then and he could see the statue clearly and there was where he knelt before it every night for 10 nights when he had been too stupid to-

A robed figure knelt at Triesa's feet.

Lance blinked hard. That was-

The figure stood and turned slowly.

Blue-grey skin, shimmering freckles and a voice like wind chimes...

"Paladin Lance."

Sayna.

A nightmare. It was a hallucination right? She wasn't  _there._

Lance was way too close. How the hell had he walked up that close to her?

He stumbled quickly backwards. He knocked his shoulder against something and spun to find Keith there. He grabbed Lance's elbow to steady him, but his gaze was elsewhere, staring daggers at Sayna.

The others followed close behind and soon Lance was being tugged backwards, into the center of their group.

"Allura, bring them in," Shiro spoke firmly into his comlink.

Lance was trying to keep his breathing even. Hunk had put an arm around his middle, keeping him upright.

"Paladin Lance," Sayna repeated. His team closed in tightly around him. Lance couldn't see her anymore from behind Shiro's shoulder.

"I am grateful to see you again."

Lance was pretty sure Keith was swearing under his breath. And Shiro may have been saying something, but it all became static, turned into an overwhelming buzzing in his ears.

Lance tried to pull away, but Hunk held onto him.

"It's okay. I'm okay. Let go."

"You sure?"

No.

"Yeah," Lance breathed out. He stood up straight and stepped around Shiro. They all went silent again.

"Paladin Lance. We have missed you." Sayna smiled. And Lance just... stood there. What was he going to say? What could he say? He needed to say something.

"Why?"

The word echoed about the room and it took Lance too long to realize it had come from his own mouth.

"Why?" He repeated. And, God, that was all he could force out from his closing throat. Sayna studied him for a long time before answering.

"You are our savior. You always have been."

Lance didn't know what to respond with. He had never known what to say when she told him that.

The sound of small rushing footsteps interrupted his thoughts.

Aleese and Torlin went tearing past him and threw themselves at Syna's knees.

"Children!" She knelt down and cupped their faces with her hands. "You are here? You're safe? What happened little ones?"

"Paladin Lance saved us," Aleese explained as she wrapped her arms around Sayna's shoulders.

"Of course he did. Of course." Smiling, Sayna cupped their faces once more and then stood up. "Go along now. You'll be safe in the tunnels."

With one last look at Lance, Aleese took Torlin's smaller hand and pulled him away, behind the statue where Lance knew the tunnel entrance was.

"Paladin Lance, thank you. You save us always, even now."

"I found them by accident."

"You found them because it was Triesa's will, because you are meant to be ours."

"Lance almost died!" Hunk cut in. "You were killing him."

"Paladin Lance is living. It is according to Triesa's will for him."

"Hunk," Lance spoke with a quiver in his voice. "It's not going to matter."

Keith had taken a few steps forward, his bayard shifting in his hand.

"Keith, wait, it's not worth it," Lance motioned for Keith to lower his bayard.

"Paladin Lance always protects us," Sayna said softly.

Keith growled.

"You're wrong! You tricked him! Poisoned him!" Keith was taking steps forward again. Shiro grabbed his arm to stop him, even with what they had done, Shiro didnt want Keith to murder anyone.

"Paladin Lance did not understand who he was. Some deception was necessary, until he understood. As long as it was Triesa's will, we knew he would survive."

Sayna turned towards Lance. "Paladin Lance, you are our savior and we love you so much."

"Shiro." Allura spoke up in a loud whisper. Lance turned his head slightly and saw a robed figure walking along the wall towards Sayna. Then another and another. Lance turned the other way and saw more. All moving in a line towards the front of the temple. 

Lance had forgotten how quietly they walked.

He didn't know where they had come from. They seemed to just be emerging from the shadows.

They surrounded them and stood in a large, silent circle.

"We're going now," Shiro's hand was glowing. "Back to the doorway." More of their bayards materialized as their group moved slowly backwards.

"Paladin Lance, may Triesa shine her love upon you always."

Lance was staring. He could feel the warmth blooming in his chest. The insatiable need to be there. He had said he would follow them. He had never finished that mission.

Sayna was smiling. She was still beautiful and Lance felt his heart ache. She loved him.

Lance was nearly knocked off his feet when he was collided into by a smaller form. He gasped and looked down to see a flash of green and arms wrapped around his torso.

Pidge stared up at him with tears in her eyes.

"Lance." They had all missed it. Pidge was the only one that had seen Lance change. They were going to lose him and she was the only one that had noticed. "Stay with us."

Lance blinked. Stay...

He looked back at Sayna. She was nearly within arm's reach. When had that happened?

Sayna stood as silent and still as the statue behind her. Lance had been the one walking towards her.

When had he decided...?

There was a flash of red and Keith was standing in front of him, bayard out, held up and ready to attack.

Lance felt like his vision was tunneling. He couldn't move. The overwhelming urge to kneel hit him.

"Keith, just leave her. Help me with him."

Keith spun around.

"Lance." Keith tapped the side of Lance's helmet roughly. "Put your face shield back down."

When had he raised the shield on his helmet? How long had he been breathing the air?

Sayna was still looking at him, her freckles glinted in the dim light.

He thought he could taste blood on his tongue.

"Lance!" Keith was shoving him backwards. "Look at me."

Lance was breathing too hard. He could hear Coran saying something, he had been talking to him the whole time, but he hadn't heard him. Finally, Lance's eyes darted away and he found Keith peering closely at him.

"Lance," Keith spoke carefully. "I promised."

Lance was moving backwards, pulled by Pidge and supported by Keith.

"Put your face shield back down." Keith tapped his helmet again.

Everything felt so fuzzy and far away. He couldn't do this again, not again. He couldn't start forgetting.

"No, calm down. Focus. Put the shield down."

Lance took in one gasping breath and felt the full visor materialize. Oxygen was being pumped into his helmet and he went dizzy from the change.

There was another arm wrapped around him and he was dragged the last few steps out of the temple. Shiro had finally managed to grab him.

The Enseldians hadn't moved. They remained watching, observing. As Lance looked back, he thought he could see her in the darkness.

Sayna was still smiling at him.

* * *

 

Shiro wouldn't forgive himself for losing track of Lance during their mission. He had been startled to be surrounded and he hadn't realized Lance wasn't moving out with them. He hadn't realized Lance was breathing in poison again.

It really had been a complete disaster.

Now, as Lance sat huddled on the Black Lion's floor, Shiro realized he didn't have time to be guilty. He needed to get them back to the castle.

Pidge had detached herself from Lance and gone running for Green. Allura and Hunk had both gone with her. A split second decision that came from not wanting Pidge to be left running on her own anywhere on this planet. Hunk knew that Lance would be looked after just fine with Shiro and Keith. Also, the trip to the castle wouldn't take long.

Keith had remained close to Lance and he sat next to him now, speaking in a level voice.

"Are you going to throw up?" Keith asked. Lance shook his head, though he kept his mouth firmly shut. He wasn't going to be sick. This wasn't even his own lion.

"Just breathe, okay? We're going back to the castle. It's over."

Lance felt tears spill onto his cheeks.

"It's done. You're not going back ever again."

Lance slipped his helmet off. They were in the lion so it had to be okay now. He couldn't breathe right and he needed some of the weight pressing down on him to lift. Lance ran his fingers through his hair. He tugged and pulled until it hurt. If it hurt, then this was real. It had to be real. He was never going to be on Enseldia ever again. He was here. He was here.

Keith pulled his hands from his hair and let him cry into his shoulder. He set his hand on Lance's neck, where he could feel the contact and told him it was alright.

"You're okay. You're okay."

A quiet, gentle relief flooded through Lance.

It was the safest he had felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, one more chapter. Not sure when it will be up. Thank you to everyone for your comments and support. I really appreciate it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! In time for Lance's birthday and everything! Happy Birthday, you beautiful boy. 
> 
> This chapter is shorter... as it was supposed to be a part of chapter 4 originally. Please excuse mistakes! I'm posting at a reasonable hour for once, but I am still tired. Go figure. 
> 
> Quick note here. If you have no triggers, feel free to skip to the actual story, but if you do, please read this:  
> I added another tag and I had no idea how to tag what came up while I was writing this. Lance was used by the Enseldians and manipulated, yes, but what comes up is the fact that they could have done whatever they wanted with him and he wasn't in a position to stop them. Nothing of a sexual nature took place between Lance and those who drugged him, however Lance has a brief breakdown when he realizes something could have happened. I don't linger on it too long and it's really pretty vague and I wasn't even going to mention anything like that, but it came about while I was writing and I ended up keeping it. As it is so quick and not directly stated, I wasn't sure how to tag it. That's all. Please stay safe and enjoy the fic.

Lance was in the infirmary, curled up on the exam cot, while Coran ran several scans. Pidge had stayed inside the Green lion; Hunk had quickly explained that she was taking a moment to herself. Keith had agreed to wait in the hangar for her, to make sure she was alright. Allura was busy moving the ship as far from Enseldia as they could get. The atmosphere in the infirmary was quiet as Coran typed away with Shiro watching the results from the scans come in.

Lance was still wearing his armor, but Hunk had slowly started to remove it in pieces. Lance didn't protest being touched and Hunk thought it may have been progress, but Coran then pointed out that his pupils were blown. 

"He's going to be compliant." Coran tapped at something on his screen. "He breathed in enough of the Syliid to experience the effects."

"So... he's high right now?" Hunk tilted his head and studied Lance's face. He was blinking his eyes slowly, fighting off sleep.

"High?" Coran stretched the word out a bit, indicating he wasn't familiar with the phrasing. 

"I think we can assume that's what Coran is saying." Shiro waved his hand through the air. "Sorry, Coran, it's a phrase that means someone is experiencing the effects of a drug, usually."

"I can still hear you all," Lance mumbled, rubbing a hand across his brow. 

"Sorry, my boy." Coran set a hand on his shoulder. "How are you feeling?" He asked slowly.

"Head hurts... Chest hurts... It's heavy. I'm tired." 

"Go ahead and rest." 

"Sayna said something like that too." Lance shut his eyes and breathed deeply. The room went uncomfortably silent. 

"Lance, you know what's happened, right? You remember where you are?" Shiro leaned closer, he tapped Lance's arm softly. 

"I know." Lance opened his eyes and sat up slightly. He pulled at his chest plate. "Hunk, can you- I know I'm here. I know I'm with you guys- I can't get this."

Hunk reached over and helped to pull the plating away. Once it was removed, Lance fell back to the bed with a sigh. 

"It's all fuzzy, but I know." Lance's eyes slipped close again. "Gonna sleep." 

"That's fine." Coran stepped back to his computer. "We'll be here when you wake up."

Lance sighed again. He didn't protest when Hunk took off his gauntlets. He knew where he was and he knew he was safe.

 

* * *

 

There had only been a small amount of Syliid in his system from breathing in some of the dust on the planet, but it was enough. 

Enough to make his head buzz with discomfort. Enough to make him sick. Enough to set him back. 

He breathed through the nausea that plagued him and shivered.  He complained to be cold despite how much he was sweating.

"Your heart rate is up again, my boy." Coran was brushing his fingers through Lance's sweat soaked hair. "Breathe. Are you going to be ill again?"

Lance shook his head and groaned at the movement. 

He had woken up claiming that he would ride it out, refusing the offer of a pod. Now that he was a full day and a night into withdrawal it was obvious he was struggling. His breathing was labored and he kept softly crying out every time he moved.

Lance was hurting. 

Coran had stayed up with him all night so far, offering painkillers and medicine to help with the nausea. Nothing seemed to work though.

"Lance," Coran spoke gently. "This is likely to go on for at least two more days. Are you certain about the pod?"

"It's my own fault." Lance's teeth clacked together as he shuddered. "I don't deserve it."

Coran's hand went still in Lance's hair. He abruptly took his hand away and grabbed the nearest chair. He pulled it close and sat down to be eye level with Lance.

"Don't deserve what?" Coran spoke, his voice carrying a genuinely confused tone. "Why did you just say that? Why do you think that?" Coran set one hand on Lance's shoulder as he stared intently in his eyes. 

Lance bit his lip. He didn't know...

"Did they tell you that, Lance? Did she tell you that?" Coran needed to know. If Sayna was still influencing Lance's decisions, then giving Lance a choice wasn’t going to help him progress the way they wanted it to.

"I-" Lance swallowed hard. "I d-don't think so. I don't know. It's not that- it's not like that."

Coran waited for Lance to continue. He would wait the rest of the night if he had to.

"But-" Lance's eyes darted away and he took in a quick breath, "they always said they loved me when it hurt the most. She was so pleased when I didn't try to stop them. If I just went with it-" Lance gagged. Coran tilted him forward and brought a waiting bucket to his mouth, but nothing came up. After a moment, Lance inhaled sharply and leaned away. "They didn't tell me I don't deserve- It’s not them. It’s me. It's what I learned. It's what I learned."

"What do you think you don't deserve, my boy? To feel better? To not hurt? Why would you think that?" Coran felt his throat closing and his eyes beginning to water, but he blinked away his tears.

"I messed up. I messed up so- so many- so many times." Lance brought his hands up and buried his face in his palms. "It's my own fault. I don't deserve to feel better or- or to be loved. I don't deserve it. I was so stupid and I made everything so hard for all of you. I don't-"

"Lance, look at me, please." Coran placed his hands over Lance’s and pushed them away. Lance stared up at him with pain in his eyes.

"You think you don't deserve love? You do. We are not them. You do not need to do anything to earn our love, dear boy. You already have it. You've had it for ages. Just by being you. Even with your mistakes, whatever you think they are," Coran brushed tears from Lance's face, even as a few of his own finally spilled over. "And you do not have to endure pain to punish yourself for what happened. We will not love you for the pain you put yourself through." Coran set his hand on the side of Lance's face. "We love you because you are Lance. That's enough. You're enough."

Lance's face crumpled as more tears came. Coran pulled him forward and wrapped his arms around him. The boy’s apologies were muffled by Coran’s shoulder. Coran just shook his head and rubbed Lance’s back and repeated his words. "You're enough. You're enough..."

They both cried until, exhausted, Lance fell asleep in his arms.

Coran didn't let go for a long, long time.

* * *

 

Coran was relieved when Lance woke up later and said he would go into the pod. 

"It will just be for two days. There wasn't a lot of Syliid in your system this time."

Lance had nodded slowly.

"Two days," Coran repeated, once they were in front of the pod. "I promise."

Lance nodded again. He winced as his head spun from the action. He knew the headache would follow him even after the pod, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad. At least, it had been manageable last time.

He could do this again. 

"Ready?" Coran wanted it to be on Lance's terms. He wouldn't turn the pod on until Lance said it was okay. Lance glanced at Shiro and Hunk who had shown up to offer support. Hunk gave him a thumbs up and Shiro nodded at him.

"Ready." Lance shut his eyes and breathed out. 

He could do this.

There was a flash of sharp coldness and then nothing.

* * *

 

After he was put in the pod, they took turns sitting with him. It had become a habit for someone to always be with Lance and they kept with their routine.

Pidge had been the one by the pods when Shiro decided to check in on the second day. The room was quiet, except for Pidge's typing on her laptop. Shiro cleared his throat.

"I wanted to ask you," Shiro's tone sounded too formal. A sign he was nervous. Pidge stopped typing and looked up at him. "I've been going over what happened and I was wondering when you saw Lance raise his face shield? Because I didn't." Shiro cleared his throat again. "Coran was asking about exposure time, I never could give him an exact answer."

Pidge tilted her heard one way and then the other. "It was when she said that thing. Triesa shinning love or whatever garbage." Pidge shut her laptop. "He just sort of went on autopilot after that. He was doing what they had conditioned him to do. Didn't seem like he could control it."

"Well," Shiro ran a hand through his hair. "I guess, I wanted to tell you thank you. For noticing. You're amazing, you know?"

Pidge smiled sadly. "Thanks, but I don't think I should be thanked for that. Noticing people's weaknesses, it's not always a good trait."

"Well, I'm grateful anyway. You saved him.”

"Shiro." Pidge stood up and stretched. She didn’t want to think about it. She was pretty sure that if Lance had really made up his mind to go with them, she wouldn’t have been able to stop him. "I'm going to try and sleep. Coran says we can wake him up after breakfast tomorrow. Are you staying?"

"For a little while."

Pidge left with a goodnight and Shiro was left alone in the quiet with only Lance’s still form as company.

"You're going to be okay," Shiro whispered under his breath. He was sure of it.

Lance slept on.

* * *

 

When Lance woke up from the pod, it wasn't nearly as alarming as the last time. He didn't start screaming anyway. He seemed too tired, but he knew where he was and he knew who was with him.

"I'm sorry," Lance muttered when they'd gotten him settled in the infirmary bed. Coran wanted to monitor him for the night and it was easy to do that if Lance stayed there.

"It's alright. Just rest, dear boy." Coran put a hand on his shoulder and Lance sighed at the touch. He then slipped uneventfully into sleep.

Hunk let out a breath of relief. Lance was really so much calmer than he was before. 

"Maybe he figured it out," Pidge remarked.

"Figured what out?" Hunk rose an eyebrow. Pidge shrugged.

"Whatever he was trying to process. Seems like he knows he's here with us, anyway." Pidge was looking at his wrists. The tallies from the marker had faded away in the pod. "I don't think he ever really got that last time."

Hunk hummed softly. He hoped she was right.

* * *

 

Lance was doing better overall. Though he was quieter than before and he had to be put on more painkillers to counteract that pain that still resided in his head and chest.

He slept a lot, but whenever he started to have a nightmare, they could calm him down easily. He just needed to hear them. Hunk still slept in the room with him, but they were both sleeping better these days. 

Things were going so well, that sometimes everything seemed like it was before, but then there were days of setbacks. 

"Lance, it's nothing conclusive. Some of the writing is old and some is new." Coran motioned to the image on the screen. He enlarged a section, highlighting a passage. "This is a prophecy about a savior. It's old. Older than you, at any rate." Coran highlighted a different section. "But this, the marks surrounding where you said the image was, are newer." Coran studied Lance's reaction, but he only continued staring blankly at the screen. "It's one long prophecy, but Lance, anyone could have fit this. There are no details about appearance."

"It looked like me."

"Lance," Coran spoke slowly. "Did it look like you after Sayna said it was about you?"

"I..." Lance struggled to remember. "After. She told me and then I saw it. Every time."

"I don't think they changed this after you crashed there, but I think anyone could have fit their prophecy. You saw what they told you to see."

Lance was frowning. He'd been having an off day already, waking up feeling like he needed to do something and, while he had wanted Coran to tell him the results of the analysis, it now just seemed pointless. 

Knowing that there had been a prophecy in place before he got there, it didn't change anything. Everything still happened.

"Keep breathing," Coran instructed gently. 

Lance shook his head. "I am." 

Coran turned the screen off, which made Lance's face twitch.

"I should have asked you before we started, are you feeling alright?"

Lance was tapping his fingers on his thigh. "I feel..." Lance gripped his hands into fists. He wanted to say fine, he really did. It had been so long, he shouldn't be feeling like his skin was crawling or like he was falling. His chest kept spasming, preparing for a drop that wasn't coming. 

"...On edge." Lance finally decided. 

"You're not due for any pain medicine now. Perhaps it would be best to skip training today."

"No, I can do it!" Lance had target practice with his bayard today. He hadn't been using his weapon at all since he'd been out of the pod this time and he needed to keep his skill level up. Lately, they had been lucky with very few missions on the ground, but the time was coming. The Galra weren't going to just wait around for him to piece his life together. He needed to practice.

"Lance," Coran was speaking slowly again. "You don't need to force yourself-"

"I know! But it's important. I got to do it sometime, Coran." Lance realized he sounded too desperate, but it was okay, right? They wouldn’t take this from him if he insisted.

"Just be careful."

Lance nodded and he forced his hands to stay still at his sides. 

"I'll be fine."

His chest plummeted with anxiety and he crushed the feeling down. He could do this.

* * *

 

Lance may have overestimated how ready he was for this. He'd been doing okay up until the targets started moving and firing little energy blasts back at him. It felt like his heart was beating all over the place and his hands were shaking. He missed. 

And he missed and he missed and he missed.

A shot caught him in the side of his helmet and he dropped. 

He could hear Shiro ending the training and Hunk was saying something too, but it got drowned out by the loud buzzing. 

He had been startled by the stinging sensation in the side of his head. 

_You're okay. You're okay._

There was a copper taste in his mouth and Lance's mind went to static. His throat burned and his eyes watered.

_He'd been eating dinner with them when he had coughed suddenly. It had hurt, Sayna said he was injured before but there was blood on his hand now and why would there be blood? It hurt, it hurt, but she shushed him and told him it was alright. Even when he was choking and there were rough fingers scraping and it was burning and-_

"Lance!" 

Someone was shaking him. They sounded scared.

"Lance!"

Oh, it was Shiro.

Lance groaned. He tipped his head to the side and spit blood. He fought down the wave of nausea. Being sick now would only make it worse. 

"Get Coran," Shiro ordered. 

"Right!" Hunk ran off to do as he was told. 

"Lance, can you hear me?" Shiro was hovering over him, not touching him anymore, just staying close. Lance let out a hopefully affirmative noise.

"You know where you are?"

"Yeah," Lance croaked out. He was still shaking  and he knew he was with Shiro, he knew it, but he worried if he opened his eyes, it would be a lie; some kind of hallucination.

Lance's breathing picked up.

"Hey, wait. Can you talk to me? What's going on?"

Lance's eyes fluttered open. Shiro was there. His chest loosened slightly.

"I don't know. I just remembered something." 

"Something with Sayna?"

"Yeah," Lance swallowed and he pushed his helmet off of his head. "Something." Lance tried to push himself into a sitting position, but his arms wouldn't cooperate. They were shaking and useless like the rest of him.

"I got you." Shiro grabbed him before he fell back onto the floor "Alright?"

Lance leaned into the warmth. Shiro was really here and Lance was safe. His team was safe. "Alright," Lance whispered. 

It was only then that he realized he had been crying. His cheeks were wet and his breathing was uneven. He was going to need time to pull himself together.

"Sorry," Lance finally managed to force out. 

"It's fine. It was just training, nobody got hurt." Shiro knew that Lance worried about being unable to help his team. He worried he was going to freak out on a mission and somebody would get injured because of it. However, on all their missions so far, Lance had been reliable, a little shaky, but still dependable. "You're still a part of this team. Even if you get upset and get a little stuck, okay?"

Lance wanted to argue, but Shiro sounded determined and Lance could remember times when Shiro got overwhelmed and needed to step away or step out. Lance felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. Lance had lost 10 days, but Shiro had lost a year. If anyone could almost understand, it was Shiro.

"Okay." Lance scrubbed the tears from his face. Suddenly, he wanted to be back in his room. He just wanted to sleep. His heart had stopped pounding and he could breathe again, but it left him feeling exhausted.

There were more voices and he realized Coran and Hunk had entered the room. They were talking quietly about what happened and Lance let the discussion go on above him, really too tired to contribute now.

A gentle hand landed on his shoulder.

"Lance? Can I see your mouth?" Coran asked softly.

"Bit myself," Lance explained. "It was an accident."

"I know, but I would like to check it anyway."

Lance turned his head slightly. If he moved fast it would probably be fine. 

"Okay," Lance took in a deep breath, but then held onto it. Maybe it wasn’t fine. "Hunk?" Lance breathed out. He lifted his arm and waved his hand in the air.

"Got it." Hunk grabbed his hand and held on. "Ready." Hunk gave Lance's hand a jostle, attempting to send him as much encouragement as he could.

"Okay," Lance repeated. He shut his eyes and quickly opened his mouth. 

Coran peered in close; he tilted his head one way and then the other.

"I think I see, I'm going to touch your chin," Coran lightly set his fingers on Lance's face and, with a gentle pressure, encouraged Lance to tilt his head up. He was done a tick later and gave Lance's shoulder a pat. "You bit the inside of your cheek pretty hard. Does it hurt?" Lance shook his head. It wasn't anything compared to what he had felt in the past. 

"I think you should take it easy for the rest of the day." Coran smiled, but there was a tenseness around his eyes.

"I'm okay though!" Lance dropped Hunk's hand, realizing too late that he was still clinging to it. 

"Yes, I know. But you weren't having a good day from the start, were you?"

Lance could feel his cheeks burn in embarrassment. He'd been trying hard to be okay. But there was something dark that had unfurled in his chest that morning. Besides the pain, there was a need for something. It made him twitch constantly and feel deeply sick with himself.

"Even when the withdrawal is over, it's normal to crave it. Nobody thinks less of you."

Shiro had sucked in a breath, but he didn't say anything. Lance leaned away from him. 

"I don't want it. I don't." Lance felt the stinging of tears in his eyes again. "How could I want something like that? It hurt." Lance touched his throat and dragged his fingers down to his chest. "It- it..." Lance felt his heart beating too loudly again. 

“I know, Lance, but that is the nature of it." Coran pulled the boy’s fingers away from where they had begun to claw up his neck. "It's alright. It's not your fault."

Lance hadn’t wanted to think about it. He didn’t want to admit it, but his edginess and that crawling feeling under his skin was directly tied to his body’s need for the drug it had become dependent on. Even though he had stopped feeling sick days ago and he should have been better by now. Even though he had been okay yesterday and the day before, it had descended upon him suddenly when he woke up that morning. Like a dark cloud that had gathered above him while he slept. 

“It’s just a bad day, my boy.”

Lance was blinking back tears as he scoffed.

“There aren’t really any good ones anymore.” He knew it was too harsh a thing to say. He knew by the way Shiro shifted behind him and the way Hunk muttered his name, like he might start crying for Lance. “Sorry,” Lance quickly apologized. He couldn’t say things like that, he couldn’t be this sad, not when his friends had worked so hard to save him and help him. He kept messing up. Over and over. And Coran said it was okay, but how was this okay? He was causing them pain. They didn’t deserve that. They didn’t-

“Should have just let me go with her.”

Lance hadn’t meant to say it. It wasn’t even how he really felt. He didn’t want to go back, he _didn’t_.

“Oh, Lance, my dear boy.” Coran’s voice shook.

Lance wanted to curl up on the floor right then and never move again. They should leave him. He was too weak and they deserved someone better. Someone strong, someone who didn’t mess up solo missions, someone who wasn’t addicted to something that was potentially fatal, someone who didn’t say stupid things, someone-

Shiro wrapped an arm around Lance and pulled him back into his chest. Lance was nearly winded from the force of it.

“Shiro,” Coran said in a hushed voice. With one hand on Lance’s arm, Coran maneuvered so that he could try to look into Shiro’s eyes, but Shiro had let his face fall forward into Lance’s shoulder.

“I wish it had been me instead.” The words were so quiet that Coran thought he had misheard at first, but Lance froze in surprise and Coran knew that he had heard correctly.

“Shiro, hey, Shiro, it’s not your fault either.” Coran placed a hand on his shoulder. Lance’s tears spilled over and Coran couldn’t tell which of the two of them was shaking. Maybe both of them. With little other choice, he wrapped his arms around both of them. “It’s alright, it’s alright.” Coran looked up to see Hunk battling back tears. Coran raised an arm and motioned for him to join them. Hunk didn’t hesitate to throw himself into the group hug.

With his arms full of crying paladins, Coran spoke quiet words of comfort to them all. Though he couldn’t say much more than assure them that it would be alright. Maybe not right now, but someday. They would be okay.

“We just have to get to that point. It’s going to be okay. We just have to get there.”

Shiro eventually straightened up, though he still didn’t let go of Lance.

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Lance choked back a sob.

“It’s alright.” Shiro cleared his throat. “I just wish I knew what to do.”

“You’re doing alright. It’s enough, Shiro. What you do is enough.” Lance knew he was repeating mostly Coran’s words and when he looked the Altean’s way, he saw a glistening pride fall on his face. Lance sunk back into their embraces and breathed out. They were all enough.

They held on for a long time.

* * *

 

“42 days since the last time you woke up from the pod,” Pidge said when Lance asked this time. He didn’t mark it down on his arm anymore, but there were days that he would find her while she was working and he would twist his fingers together and, quietly, he would ask her for the count.

And that was how they knew it was one of the bad days.

Lance didn’t need to explain or say more. Coran had said that it was quite possible he would always have bad days. But, as time passed, they would grow further apart and they wouldn’t have a hold on him like they did now. Lance just needed to weather the storm.

But he never had to be alone.

When Lance woke up counting days, they would find some corner of the ship to sit in and they would wait for it to pass.

On the 42nd day, they had settled into the lounge area when Pidge decided to play music. She and Hunk were working on their own projects while Lance stretched out on the floor. They only needed to be near him. He would let them know if they needed to move locations or talk. It had been pretty quiet, with songs playing softly one after the other, when Lance suddenly rolled to his side.

“Skip it, Pidge.”

Pidge jumped, having grown accustomed to Lance’s silence for the past varga or so. She fumbled quickly with her laptop, briefly registering that the song was something upbeat before she managed to skip to the next one. A lyric about an ‘ache to remember’ was cut off and Pidge winced. She stared at Lance for a moment and watched as he tapped at the floor. Lance fidgeted more now. He bounced his leg, ran his hands through his hair or just shifted constantly whenever he was fighting off something.

“Sorry,” Pidge cleared her throat. “It’s Matt’s playlist. I don’t know all the songs.”

“Matt’s?”  Lance wrinkled his brow and rolled onto his back. “He’s got weird taste.”

A slower song had started up and, although it sounded sadder, it was also loud. Lance didn’t ask for it to be changed. Pidge thought she saw him blinking away tears though. Matt would listen to this one when he was upset too.

Pidge felt like she had been punched in the chest. Her hands hung uselessly above her keyboard and her mouth quirked down into a frown. She stayed like that for a long time. Waiting out the sadness. A new song started and she remembered her brother blasting this one through the house on purpose in the middle of the night, because he thought it was funny when she yelled at him through the walls to shut up. Their poor parents never tried to intervene.

It wasn’t a bad song really. Though, she still somehow didn’t know the words, despite hearing it so often.

“Pidge?” Hunk asked quietly. Right, she hadn’t moved for a long time. And she was just staring at nothing. She should tell him she was okay. She managed to meet his eyes, before her face screwed up with the effort to not cry.

“It’s okay, Pidge.” Hunk was trying to smile at her, but she just shook her head and then scrubbed at her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she blurted. Lance had sat up and he was staring at her as if he was trying to figure something out. With a groan, he pushed himself up to his feet, in a few quick steps he was at her side. Lance threw out one hand, offering it to her. “I gotta move. Dance with me?”

Pidge blinked. “Lance, I don’t really dance.”

“You’re telling me that your brother never tried to get you to dance to any of his ridiculous music? I’m not buying it. Also,” Lance was tapping away at his leg with his other hand, “you have to help me out. I need to move around.”

“Okay.” Well, if it was to help Lance… She let him pull her to a standing position. 

“Joining us?” Lance asked as he turned to Hunk.

“Definitely.” Hunk grinned and scrambled to his feet.

They turned the music up louder and while they were all awkward at first, Lance was determined to move and he didn’t care that he hadn’t danced in forever and was rusty. If he moved fast enough, he could forget everything that had happened and he could just have fun with his friends. It would be enough.

They had been dancing through several songs when Shiro and Keith walked in. Keith immediately turned to leave as soon as he realized what was happening, but Shiro grabbed his arm.

“What are you all up to?” Shiro asked with a grin. He had heard that Lance was having a bad day, so he had come to check on him. This was a pleasant surprise.

“Lance needed to move,” Pidge explained.

“Matt has terrible taste in music,” Lance shouted over the song as Hunk spun him in a circle.

“I know that,” Shiro laughed. “I was in space with him. I heard it all.”

“But some of it’s good. I like it!” Lance was grinning. He hadn’t smiled like that in ages.

“You guys should dance!” Hunk shouted.

“Yeah, dance!” Lance waved his arms in the air.

“Shiro…” Keith was trying to pull away.

“Mullet, just move your feet, it’s like fighting without actually punching anyone. You can do it!”

“Fighting?” Keith raised an eyebrow. Shiro patted his arm.

“It could be fun.”

Keith groaned. Shiro was always so intent on making sure he socialized and had “fun.” That hadn’t changed since the Garrison.

“Fine,” he gave in. It was good to see Lance happy; Keith wasn’t going to be the one that brought down the mood now.

He couldn’t really dance though, and he found himself bumping into people a lot. Lance would just laugh and spin away. He honestly didn’t care about anyone’s dance skills, the point was to move.

“Hunk, catch me!”

“Lance, not again!”

They both ended up on the floor and Lance burst out laughing. “Sorry, Hunk.”

“It’s fine. You need to give me more warning though.”

Lance tapped hard against his own kneecap. “Can we keep going?”

“Yeah,” Hunk hoisted himself off the floor. “You got it.”

Lance grinned. It was slightly forced this time, but he could feel the pressure decreasing from around his heart. If they were with him, he could weather any storm.

Coran came to get them when it was dinner time. He was grinning at them when he found them and promised he would share some of his Altean dance moves some other day.

As they filed out of the room laughing, Coran swung an arm around Lance’s shoulders and pulled him close.

“Try to eat something, alright?” Coran was whispering so that the others wouldn’t hear, even though they all knew Lance had trouble with food on bad days. Lance grimaced, but he nodded.

“Hunk was baking earlier, I told him I would try the cookies.” Lance shuffled his feet as he walked. He resisted the urge to drum his fingers along his thigh. “Could we walk later?” Lance had been told that it was fine to wander through any part of the ship and Coran had said he didn’t mind joining him, but Lance still wasn’t completely sure.

“Of course, we can.”

If Lance was moving, it was easier to talk. He could talk about anything. Everything he remembered and everything he couldn’t. Coran always listened to him. He never interrupted and he never questioned when Lance jumped from one subject to another. He was pretty sure he had spent a varga talking about the texture of the clothes on Enseldia once. He knew that he had a fresh pair of pajamas on every day he was there and he couldn’t always remember changing. He had hyperventilated out of nowhere over that one and it had taken another varga for Coran to get him to calm down.

“I was so stupid, Coran.” That’s what Lance always came back to, no matter how many times everyone insisted he wasn’t. “And they could have… treated me worse and I still would have stayed with them.”

“Well, we still would have found you. And we would still worry for you and love you, no matter what.” It was the only thing that Coran could think to say. Lance had rubbed the tears from his face and nodded.

“I love you guys too.”

They had come a long way.

As they sat down to dinner, Hunk reached over and squeezed one of Lance’s hands when he began to scratch too hard at his arm. Lance took a deep breath and quietly thanked him. His friend smiled at him.

“No problem.” He handed Lance a bowl of food goo. Lance began eating, slowly, actually chewing the mush carefully so he wouldn’t choke. His team ate, laughed and joked around him. Lance felt warmth bloom in his chest and his eyes stung from the overwhelming feeling of calm and peace he found in that moment. He relaxed, his pain diminished. He stole glances at them and they smiled at him.

As Lance let the warmth wash over him, he only had one resounding thought.

They love me.

 

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it. We are all done!
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed the last chapter and the fic in general. I was determined not to end with a sleepover scene this time. I feel like I can only get away with that so many times. 
> 
> If anyone is interested, the song Lance asks Pidge to skip is 'Come on get Higher' by Matt Nathanson, which I heard and found to be weirdly fitting for Lance's situation. 
> 
> Special thanks to Cosu for the art that inspired this fic. This fic would never had been written if not for her lovely artwork.


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